From London to DIFC
14 YearsFourteen years in the industry for Andrea, and two openings in fifteen months.
Discover the Journey
When Andrea first walked into the future Gattopardo London site, there was no restaurant yet.
“It was still an art gallery being torn down. People were digging the basement to build the kitchen. I was literally walking in the mud.”
In London, Andrea’s job wasn’t the design, the owners handled that. His job was to build how the restaurant actually runs: the order of service, training staff on the machines, and writing the step-by-step guides that turn a finished room into a working restaurant.
He was offered the job in late 2022. Gattopardo London opened about nine months later, in September 2023. Fifteen months after that, he moved to open Dubai.
Why the View Was Worth Fighting For
DIFCIl Gattopardo Dubai opened on December 7, 2024, on the highest floor of ICD Brookfield Place in DIFC. Andrea says many other restaurant groups wanted this spot before his group won it.
See Why the View Matters
“In DIFC, the location makes the difference. You’re overlooking Dubai, and nobody will ever build in front of you.”
The downside: no one walks past by chance. Every guest has to choose to come up in the elevator. Nobody just wanders in.
“This isn’t a place you end up at. You come here because you decided to come.”
The Machine Behind the Table
84 PeopleOn a normal day, the team has 84 to 86 people. About 24 work in the kitchen. A similar number work as waiters and runners. 6 work at reception, 10 behind the bar, and there are 6 sommeliers. A separate cleaning team looks after the venue. On the busiest day so far, the restaurant served 368 guests at dinner and 112 at lunch: 480 guests in one day.
See How It Works
A table for two is normally given two hours. Bigger groups get two and a half to three hours. But lunch can be done in 45 minutes if guests are in a hurry.
“At lunch, they’re straight to the point. At dinner, people take their time. They don’t realize how fast it goes, because they’re chatting.”
Thursday to Saturday are the busiest nights. With so many choices in Dubai, last-minute cancellations are a challenge across the industry, and Saturdays see the most. Rather than overbooking, the team manages the floor closely, keeping a few tables on hold until the last minute and leaving room for walk-ins.
Key Insight
Ordering plates, cutlery, and glasses from Italy takes about a month. If something breaks, it can’t be replaced in a week here in the UAE. That’s why the team keeps a detailed inventory and tracks every piece as closely as the wine list.
The Rule Nobody Breaks
One RuleNo one working the floor sees the sales numbers. Managers review them every two weeks. Waiters never do.
Discover the Rule
“We don’t want a waiter to sell what’s most expensive. We want them to sell what they love. If you sell something with your heart, the guest will love it a hundred percent.”
The team tracks something they call “the trend of Gatto.” It’s not about how much a guest spends, or how often they visit. It’s about how connected they feel to the team. A guest could visit a thousand times and never really talk to anyone. Another guest might visit only sometimes but build a real relationship with the staff. What matters is the relationship, not how many times someone shows up. Staff often point to one server as the example to follow: she once remembered, without being told, that a regular guest couldn’t eat a certain dish, and swapped it for something else on her own.
“You can come here a thousand times and never really talk to the team. But there are guests who come every day, and we build a real relationship, not just the usual waiter-and-guest kind.”
Andrea gives his personal phone number to regular guests.
“If you want to come back, here’s my number. Don’t worry, you’re not bothering me. I will never tell you I’m on holiday, or send you to the website instead.”
About 95% of the current Dubai team has been there since opening day in December 2024. Andrea points to this number as proof that “people first” isn’t just something he says.
Key Insight
The same thinking applies to costs. Andrea sees some expenses as investments, not costs to cut. His two examples are an extra cleaner and a performer on a busy night. Cutting either would save money on paper, but it wouldn’t make things better for the guest. So neither gets cut.
Built From Italy, Shared Across Four Venues
Made in ItalyGattopardo shares its building with two sister venues, Bar des Prés and 1920, plus Horizon52, the group’s event and banqueting space. All four are spread across the highest floors of the tower. A guest could spend a full day moving between them: a business meeting at Horizon52, lunch at Gattopardo, dinner at Bar des Prés, late night at 1920. Staff are cross-trained across the venues and briefed on how each one runs, so when one needs extra hands, the team steps in already knowing the menu, the service and the guests.
Explore the Details
The bar in Dubai has grown into a destination of its own. Andrea says it’s “still building its own identity.”
“When we started choosing the plates and cutlery, the goal was to be different. In London, if you go from one restaurant to another, you often find the same cutlery, the same style of dish.”
All the plates and cutlery come from Italy. This includes pieces from Alessi, handmade ceramics from Bucci, and placemats from small producers in northern Italy. The goal was to avoid the repeated, generic tableware Andrea sees across London restaurants.
Key Insight
Two rules about the menu. First, no bread is served at the start of a meal. In Italy, bread is the scarpetta, used to clean your plate after pasta, not to fill you up before the meal. Second, the menu never stands still. Dishes change with the seasons, the ingredients available and what guests respond to, so the menu keeps moving instead of turning into a fixed list of old favourites.
Events and menus follow Italian traditions and holidays. Il Pranzo runs every Saturday and evolves with the seasons: Il Pranzo di Ferragosto marks Italy’s favourite summer holiday, Il Pranzo d’Autunno celebrates autumn and forest flavours, and Il Pranzo di Natale brings back traditional Christmas dishes and desserts passed down from generation to generation. The daily Aperitivo, from 5pm to 7:30pm, is a true celebration of the Italian early-evening ritual, not a response to after-work offers.
Once a month, the team hosts Aperipizza, a social evening with free-flow pizza, beer and prosecco for 98 AED. It started as a way to bring Dubai’s restaurant community back together after a difficult time for the industry, and it has become one of the warmest introductions to Gattopardo’s hospitality.
The Viral Moment
Viral MomentOne photo made the brand go viral. It showed the tiramisu next to a cappuccino, taken outside the London restaurant. It was posted by a customer with a large online following, who Andrea believes was from the Gulf. People started waiting up to 45 minutes for an outdoor table to recreate the photo.
See What Went Viral
The recognition followed the brand to Dubai before it even opened. A staff member wearing the opening-week T-shirt was stopped inside Dubai Mall and asked, “Are you the one with the tiramisu?”
Key Insight
Every dish is plated with care, but Andrea says nothing is designed just to look good in photos. “Whatever’s on the plate is there because it completes the dish, not because it makes the picture better,” he says. The viral moment came from that care, not from trying to go viral.
What’s Next
IstanbulThe group already runs other venues in Turkey. The next Gattopardo will open at Galata Port in Istanbul, within a couple of weeks of this interview.
Discover What’s Next
“Seeing this place built again somewhere else was the wow moment for me. It’s like copying your own home into another country.”
Even with two locations, soon three, on two continents, Andrea is careful not to say the brand has “made it.”
“As a brand, we have dreams, plans, goals. Big brands have been in the market for ages. We’ve been here since 2023. The moment you believe your brand is the best one is the moment you start to fail. The guests will feel it.”
Grazie, Andrea.
