It’s 10 to 9 on a Wednesday. In Palermo, the communal table in a café is occupied by the local team, who are having breakfast and planning the day to come. The rest of the space is empty. But ten minutes later, not a single table is available. It’s even hard to find a place to take photos without bothering customers. That’s how it is Oli Cafethe resounding success that a year and a half ago created Olivia Salone of the most effervescent and solid voices of the new gastronomic generation.
News: How does it feel to be the gastronomy prodigy girl and always have the place full?
Olivia Salal: I’m grateful that I was able to put together the team that I did. The most difficult thing about something working is that the team behind is organized, that we can do our job well. I’ve worked in a thousand places where when something breaks, it takes a long time to get it fixed. In the world of hospitality, when something breaks, a chain of bad moods begins. For this reason, everything has to be very much in its place, and I am very much on top of it.
News: What did you dream when you opened your cafe?
Sal: I didn’t know what it was going to be, everyone was asking me what it was going to be called and I couldn’t explain it. But I was calm, I thought it was going to be a space to be at any time of the day and live the experience. At first it was a cafeteria with a counter and some savory dishes, and it grew. That’s why I never lowered the name, so as not to limit myself. I played a little to see who I am and what this could be.
News: Was it discovered at the same time?
Sal: Yes. And I was discovering what he wanted and who he was. I have a background in pastry, as a baker, but when they define me like that, I find it uncomfortable. I think I am a cook and a hospitality person. Someone who is in the trenches, with the team.
News: And how was your journey here? Do you come from a family of gastronomy?
Sal: My mom worked a lot in gastronomy at twenty. She did internships at the reception, lounge, service, in the restaurants that were fashionable. And my mom’s brother was also a chef. He started with Fer Trocca at the same moment. In my kitchen I have a photo of both of them from 89. And my dad started with fast food in the malls, which at that time was a boom. I worked there, I was a receptionist in a food court in one of his stores.
News: But when he had to study, he chose cinema.
Sal: Although in my house eating well was always an issue, I did not dream of having a restaurant, I went more for another sensibility. I liked filming and its more experimental part, so I started to study Theater Arts. But by the age of 18 I had already read a lot of Shakespeare, Chekhov, I was very nerdy, and when I got to the class it didn’t break my brain like I thought. So I enrolled in Cinema looking for a more general training. I finished the technical degree, but in the second year I understood that I was not going to work on that. One with what he chooses accepts the battle that he has to fight in that area, which is to eat many things that he does not like to be able to do those that he does. And with the cinema I was not willing to bank a lot. When I started studying Pastry I realized that there were things that were heavy, but I could bear them. And I made the decision that I wanted to be very good at baking so that I could open a place that would allow me to finance the movies.
News: But life made one thing lead to another…
Sal: Exact. I fell in love with this and if I make movies, great. Anyway, we have just presented a short film in Malaga that I produced and starred in, “Identidad”, directed by Alfredo Olivieri. It is about identity and where we do what we do from. And it won the Biznaga de Plata as the best short film in the Cinema Cocina section.
News: How do you deal with people’s expectations? In networks either they love it or they hate it.
Sal: I think one begins to understand that it is part of any job. Or do we like everything everyone does? Although I do what I do to like it, because it is food, it may not happen. I don’t like mayonnaise, and that’s not why I’m going to put a review on Google. Also the experience that one is going to live is very personal. A person may come who does not like the communal table…
News: Does criticism affect you?
Sal: It depends which one. There are some that I take more personally, because sometimes you feel like you killed yourself and you receive an unfair comment. When on weekends there is an hour and a half in line, here we are doing everything to make the experience perfect. But it can happen.
News: Do you define yourself as a perfectionist?
Sal: Yes, although sometimes I relax with some things, because if not, I don’t have a good time. The good thing about the perfectionist, if it’s well channeled, is that it’s a day-to-day job, it’s not that I once went crazy. It is something picky that is always there. If not, they are starts of another nature.
News: And how is she as a boss?
Sal: I really like to make decisions, so I am very confident. And I am very communicative, I have 80 WhatsApp groups to talk about everything I have to talk to everyone. I also think I know how to listen. And I give a lot of accompaniment to those who are becoming leaders. You don’t pick up a boss and leave him alone. There is a strong crisis in that step of assuming more responsibilities, so I have talks, I listen and I help to solve it.
News: Gastronomy is a field characterized by the volatile, how do you deal with that?
Sal: There is a moment when some leave and break your heart. But I also understand that each one is in his search. I think of myself at another time and I understand what they want to undertake. This work involves the body, many hours, without virtualities, and it is difficult to sustain. That is why the world of hospitality is in such a crisis, especially after the pandemic, which accelerated this digital process. Being here for nine hours, bonding body to body, with the heat of the kitchen, It generates a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. We don’t have the patience to sustain even a shift of physical work. You have to make 100 croissants, 100 guards, fold boxes. Things that are not so inspiring to a 20-year-old.
News: How did you come to open your store at the age of 26?
Sal: We cooks live a bit like athletes, there are many things that happen very young. If you started cooking at 19, by 26 you already did a lot of things. At 23 I was the boss, I had my team. Much of the investment was made with my savings from those years. I traveled a lot working, and during the pandemic I gave puff pastry, croissants and pastry courses. I reversed that here.
News: Where do you go when you go out to eat?
Sal: I go to Sudestada, to Anafe, to El Preferido, to Narda Comedor, to Cantina Albamonte. And I always ask the same thing. I had many gastroenterological problems, so in general I try not to eat fried foods. I really like meat, fish, the world of potatoes. My favorite salad is the arugula and parmesan salad. I am very basic!
News: Projects, ambitions?
Sal: I want to open a place that already has a name in my head, a restaurant that is like an Oli for adults, because this one is more playful.
News: Would it be in Palermo?
Sal: When I was looking for a place for Oli, my mom found it. It is a statement where you open, with the good and the bad. I spoke with many people who I like what they do and they all told me “you have to open something in a place further away”, be cool, be the one that makes that place fashionable. And inside me I thought “yes, re”, but there is something that seems cooler to me, which is being able to maintain a place with 32 people working. You have to pull a lot. It didn’t want to be a place where you go once and never come back. In order to sustain what he wanted, he had to have a significant flow of people. Here I have a team of baristas, drinks, counter, kitchen, laminate, bakery, pastry. It was bigger than I thought, but there were a lot of things to do. And I managed to grow in here.
