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Photo credit: Personal archive

Q: Every restaurant has a story behind it…what is the story of the Globo Restaurant? What is the main philosophy?

The owner Peter Matyšak started working in the hospitality industry in his young age and after finishing the hotel academy, he worked in Austria as waiter for a few years. Through the years he became the hotel manager in Slovakia and later he successfully established what is now one of the biggest winemaking company in slovakia – Vino Matyšak. He builded hotel in Bratislava with refurbished old wine cellar with capacity for 80 000 wines. He also owns a restaurant in the town Pezinok, in an old winemaking house where at the beginning, he used to do his wines. One of his life dreams was to open a restaurant of the highest quality, which could compete with the best restaurants around the World.

When he found the perfect time and place, he teamed up with Branislav Križan and came to Savoy hotel in London where I was working at that time, after leaving Qatar and told me about his vision. I joined the team and we spent almost a year creating what is now the Globo. We took experienced professionals on board and created a very strong team. We were not experimenting how to get to the high quality, but we set the highest standards from the beginning and we maintain it every day. Globo gives the opportunity of real hospitality – we treat guests like at our own home – that’s the part of our philosophy. This is not a place to have just a meal but it is a place you leave with a long lasting experience.

Q: Bratislava is firmly becoming one of the top European destinations. How would you describe the culinary offer in Bratislava? Is it competitive to the offer of other European capital?

One of the strongest point of the offer is the connection with the culinary history from the times of Austo-Hungerian monarchy where dining had tremendous role in society. Great heritage with quality local products and ingredients are puting Bratislava on the European culinary map.

Great heritage with quality local products and ingredients are puting Bratislava on the European culinary map.

More guests from all around the world are visiting Bratislava these days, that is helping to rise the quality and the standards. Bratislava has strong identity with great location being located on river Danube and close to another great capital of Europe – Vienna. In Globo we are aiming to compete, not just with local restaurants, but to compete with best European cities, and more and more restaurants in Slovakia are starting to have similar goal.

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Q: What makes Globo Restaurant unique? What kind of food do you serve? What is the inspiration behind your food creations?

We serve dishes with Central European identity with strong focus on local ingredients. The restaurant has its own gardens and butchery located in the town of Pezinok and has very good relationships with local suppliers that we are buying from. The menu is changing very often based on seasonality.

Each dish is invented with paying attention to details and with a focused dedication from our talented chefs.

Each dish is invented with paying attention to details and with a focused dedication from our talented chefs. The restaurant is strongly connected to wine as the owner is an enthusiastic winemaker. Sommelier team of five members have access to the archive extending to Matyšák production from early nineties and collection of wines from all around the world. Every wine is treated here with respect and served the right way. Chefs and sommeliers creating together unique tasting menus daily.

Q: Can you briefly explain the architectural concept of the restaurant? And its capacity?

The restaurant has two floors in seven hundred years old gothic style house located in the heart of the city centre, just next to the main square. The restaurant with the capacity of 42 seats is located on the ground floor and wine cellar for 45 people is located underground. There are many wine tastings happening here every week. It is a great place for groups to dine and wine.

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Photo credit: Globo Restaurant

Q: What is in your opinion the secret for a successful restaurant?

I believe that to start with, the first step is the idea and the vision behind the concept. Secondly the right recruitment and creation of highly motivated team of members who enjoy working in the hospitality and make guests feel welcomed in the restaurant. One of the biggest challenges and the key to success is consistency, you should never lower your standards not even for a minute of the day. Successful restaurant needs to respect the tradition but also being open minded to the changing industry.

Q: Who are your typical customers? What’s your secret to keeping customers coming in?

Guests who visit Globo, come with set expectations. We are welcoming more of the foreign guests than the local guests at our doors. We teamed and made partnership with luxurious five-star boutique hotel Arcadia located just a hundred meters from us. The hotel is built in similar architectural style with the same aim of the highest standards and quality. The secret to keep customers coming in, is to find out what guest desire and to personalize the service for each of them. Succeeding that is important for recognition among our regular guests and provide them the service according to their individual needs.

Q: What are some of the challenges of being a restaurant manager?

Sustaining the standards all the time and keeping the staff motivated not to stop developing at the same time. Being a restaurant manager is a job which takes a lot of time and energy as you need to be there for your guests, team members, keep developing always something new, keeping your eye on the budget, doing the marketing activities in and out of work and also making sure the owner vision is in the place all the time. To succeed you need to have the right and trustworthy people around you, who understand the owners and your own vision and deliver the result with or without you being close. And at last, but very importantly finding and developing the own right way of leadership with your team.

Photo credit: Globo Restaurant

Q: What kind of marketing and advertising initiatives have worked for you? What haven’t?

High customer satisfaction is the best marketing tool to build on and our main focus of marketing.

High customer satisfaction is the best marketing tool to build on and our main focus of marketing. All the reviews about Globo are so far positive. Portals like tripadvisor is very important as many guests come to us when visiting Bratislava after reading that we score five from five all the times. We keep publish articles in professional and lifestyle magazines and we keep developing and sending our staff for professional competitions and workshops in this fields to represent us. We do marketing for Globo 24/7.

What have not worked for us in terms of marketing were the citylights. The whole project included around 40 advertising spots in Bratislava for a period of two week. Shortly after, we realised that the strategy is not bringing the results expected and honestly, this marketing strategy did not reflect value of the total cost.  What I learned through this is that marketing activities are more effective when they are visible for longer period of time and are reachable by online platforms.

Q: The star of the restaurant is usually the chef…who is the Globo chef?

Branislav Križan is one of the best Slovak chef, also very passionate fisherman and soon father of two. He builded his team over years around him when he worked for Peter Matyšak in his hotel and took part of the Globo team. Restaurant in Matyšak’s hotel won a few awards for the best hotel restaurant in Slovakia. Branislav is also captain of Slovakia national chef team and represent our country on many competitions. He was also one of the jury chef in the well know show – Masterchef.

Read more about Globo Restaurant & Wine Bar at this link:

https://kongres-magazine.eu/2019/04/globo-restaurant-wine-bar-the-new-kid-in-town/

From the desk of: Ajda Borak

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