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Gerard Martí is a former student of the Master in Restaurant Management at the Culinary Institute of Barcelona. He began studying a higher degree in Kitchen and Restaurant Management, which he later expanded with experiences in different restaurants and catering, to now appear as the head of the Casanovas restaurant.
Index
- A centenary restaurant business
- Sustainability and creativity in a business model
- Master in Restaurant Management, the solution to many doubts
A centenary restaurant business
Gerard is the fourth generation of a business that has been running since 1924. It was born as a delicatessen, which evolved into a traiteur style. Later they also started a catering business and a restaurant. Right now Gerard is in charge of the restaurant both in the dining room and in the kitchen.
What he likes most about his job is being able to lead a team, since it is interesting for him to play with various types of personalities, which requires knowing how to treat each one. Creating elaborations, creating dishes, tasting them, and seeing how the customers like them is what really satisfies you. Its objective is to keep the family business afloat, and it states that:
"We know that times are changing, customs are changing and culture is changing. What the CIB has taught me is to anticipate the future, to foresee what is going to come next, in order to be the first to do it. "- Gerard Martí
Sustainability and creativity in a business model
At Gerard's family restaurant, each day they prepare a daily menu, based on local products from their own gardens and farms.
He attaches great importance to the product, and to being able to surprise diners with it. Raising awareness is one of Gerard's roles, he is highly motivated to attach importance to small producers and sustainability values.
For him creativity is an element that cannot be lacking in a kitchen, and which in turn shows that it is what unites him to his work and what makes it a true passion. He believes that this is the ideal time to exploit all his creativity, since he is in the middle of a transformation. Going from being a traditional business to a modern one without losing the values of the family business is not easy, but it is one of the reasons why he decided to study the Master in Restaurant Management.
Master in Restaurant Management, the solution to many doubts
Making an embryonic idea come true, as Gerard calls it, was one of the goals he set for himself when studying the Master in Restaurant Management. He had questions that he was seeking to resolve, such as: What to include in the restaurant business plan? What can we do with such an old family business? How do we keep this model from expiring? How can we face the new trends? How can we face the future?
Gerard expresses that once he finished the master's degree, he was able to start putting into practice many of the concepts and methodologies learned at the CIB, highlighting the most important ones:
- Adapt to new trends: The traiteur concept also evolved to be Take Away, working with logistics channels that work on the arrival of the product to the customer and work on marketing that many small companies cannot support.
- Adapt a business model of years
They come out of the restaurant business that everyone knows, which is a very serious model with a lot of protocol. Taking advantage of the fact that Barcelona is a tourist city, they have started a project with AirBnb Experiences. They do cooking classes with tourists, in which they make typical dishes such as a good potato omelette or a good sangria. They experience the local cuisine in the first person. - Human resources management
He has developed strategies that have allowed him to identify the type of people he needs in his team, how to encourage motivation, and how to get the most out of them. dealing with staff is something that Gerard recognizes is quite important, and he dedicates a lot of time to it, involving them in everything that is done in the business. - Projects management
Now that they have carried out a reform in the restaurant, and that Gerard has implemented new strategies at the business and process level, is when the Project Management subject has helped him the most. Knowing how to define, execute and control his ideas has led him to successfully develop his projects.
"You are advised by many professionals who have been in the sector for years, and who attach great importance to the future, and that is something that many schools lack, because we know that time is changing and that cannot be stopped. You have to know how to adapt. to everything that comes, and that is the secret of the CIB. " - Gerard Martí
