用意大利菜引诱“法国胃”
8月初一个周日的晚上，大多数巴黎人已经去了海滩，而在这座城市时髦的第二区的Pizzeria Popolare门外，千禧一代们在排队等着这家意大利餐馆开门营业。
The establishment does not take bookings so they have come early to be sure of getting their hands on its trademark €5 Neapolitan margherita pizzas. It opened in April and each day 1,300 diners pass through its doors. Pizzeria Popolare is part of the Big Mamma food group, and since it opened its first restaurant in Paris two years ago it has shaken up the French capital’s restaurant scene — typically associated with haute cuisine and bistronomie rather than homemade Italian street food.
这家店不接受预订，所以他们早早就过来了，这样才能买到该店标志性的5欧元那不勒斯玛格丽塔披萨。这家店在4月份开张，每天服务的食客达1300人。Pizzeria Popolare是比格•马马(Big Mamma)食品集团的一部分，自两年前在巴黎开张第一家餐馆以来，已搅动了巴黎餐馆业——后者以高级烹饪和小餐馆(而不是家常的意大利街头食品)见长。
The group has grown to six restaurants, employs more than 400 people, and this year will close a €20m fundraising round at a valuation of just over €100m, according to investors, to fund a European expansion. Last year it recorded revenues of €15m, which it expects to more than double this year.
这家集团已发展到拥有6家餐馆，聘用逾400名员工，据投资人介绍，今年将完成一轮2000万欧元的筹资(使估值达到略高于1亿欧元)，以便在欧洲各国扩张。去年，该集团录得营收1500万欧元，预计今年增幅将超过100%。
Behind the Big Mamma group is Victor Lugger and Tigrane Seydoux, a pair of entrepreneurs in their early thirties who have been friends since they met at HEC Paris business school. Over rare beef and burrata (made 36 hours ago in Puglia) at Pink Mamma, their latest venture that opened in June, Mr Lugger reflects on how Big Mamma became the fastest-growing restaurant group in Paris.
比格•马马食品集团的老板是维克托•卢格尔(Victor Lugger)(见题图)和提格兰•塞杜(Tigrane Seydoux)。这对创业家刚刚年过30岁，自从在巴黎高等商学院(HEC Paris)结识后一直是朋友。卢格尔一边在Pink Mamma享用着三成熟牛肉和布拉塔乳酪(burrata)——36小时之前在普利亚(Puglia)烹饪而成——一边思索Big Mamma是如何成为巴黎增长最快的餐饮集团的。Pink Mamma是他俩在6月开张的新生意。
“Our number-one obsession at the start was how can we have the best value for money,” he says. “The restaurant industry is not about margin, it’s about volume. In France, no one seems to understand that.”
“一开始我们关心的头号问题是，我们如何能让钱花得最值，”他说，“餐馆业的关键不是利润率，而是规模。在法国，似乎谁也不明白这一点。”
Mr Lugger likens Big Mamma’s approach to fast fashion brands such as Zara and Uniqlo, which — by operating vast stores in prime locations and producing enormous quantities of products — are able to offer items like cashmere jumpers, once deemed luxury items, at mass market prices.
卢格尔认为，Big Mamma的战略类似于Zara和优衣库(Uniqlo)等快时尚品牌。这些品牌在黄金地段经营大型门店并生产巨量产品，从而有能力以大众市场价格出售开司米毛衫等曾被视为奢侈品的商品。
Big Mamma is seeking to do the same with Italian food. The restaurant world is a notoriously fickle business and the sheer size of its six Paris-based restaurants — a key asset — could easily turn into a liability if the brand falls out of favour and millennials opt to queue elsewhere.
Big Mamma寻求对意大利菜如法炮制。餐馆是一门变幻无常的生意，如果品牌不再流行，千禧一代们选择去其他餐馆排队，那么Big Mamma在巴黎拥有6家餐馆(这是核心资产)的这种规模，很容易变成一种负担。
For now this obsession with achieving volume seems to be paying off. The group feeds 3,600 people a day across its six eateries, which have a total of 850 seats between them. On average this means that each restaurant is receiving at least two sittings of guests a day for both lunch and dinner.
就目前而言，这种对扩大规模的执着似乎正在见效。Big Mamma旗下6家餐馆共有850个座位，每天来消费的食客有3600人。平均来说，这意味着每家餐馆在每天的中午和晚上两个就餐时段都至少接待两批食客。
Each establishment is different in its design and speciality; the only dishes that are consistent across all six menus are San Daniele ham, pizza margherita, truffle pasta and tiramisu. There’s East Mamma (a trattoria), Ober Mamma (cocktail bar and wood-fired oven), Mamma Primi (handmade fresh pasta), Biglove (gluten-free pizza and Italian brunch), Pink Mamma (meat) and Popolare (pizza). The drinks menu offers a twist on traditional classics including a timely “Vladimir Poutine matches Brigitte” cocktail: tequila, ginger beer, lime and absinthe, which is — somewhat bizarrely — garnished with crushed nacho chips.
每家店的设计和特色有所不同;唯一在6家店都相同的是圣丹尼尔火腿、玛格丽特披萨、松露意大利面和提拉米苏(一种意大利甜品——译者注)。这些店分别是East Mamma(意大利便餐店)、Ober Mamma(鸡尾酒吧和木炭烤箱)、Mamma Primi(手工制作新鲜意大利面)、Biglove(不含面筋的披萨和意大利早午餐)、Pink Mamma(肉类)和Popolare(披萨)。饮料菜单提供传统经典的改良品种，包括适时推出的“Vladimir Poutine matches Brigitte”鸡尾酒：其中包含特奎拉酒、姜汁啤酒、青柠和苦艾酒，然后有点儿奇怪地用碎的玉米片点缀。
“One reason why we have succeeded so far is that we always made the ambitious choice,” says Mr Lugger. This meant persuading Martin Brudnizki, an interior designer known for creating the interiors of top London establishments such as The Ivy, Scott’s and Annabel’s, to design the inside of its first Big Mamma restaurant, and two subsequent ones. Well-priced food, the founders thought, did not have to be at the expense of a high-end dining experience. All of the plates and bowls, for example, are hand-painted ceramics from Deruta in Italy — a deliberate choice since the bright colours Deruta is known for are perfect for Instagram (the group has 52,300 followers on the social-networking site).
“我们迄今取得成功的一个原因是，我们总是做出雄心勃勃的选择，”卢格尔说。这包括说服知名室内设计师马丁•布鲁德尼茨基(Martin Brudnizki)来设计Big Mamma第一家餐馆、以及之后两家餐馆的内饰;布鲁德尼茨基因创建伦敦顶级餐厅如常春藤(The Ivy)、Scott’s和Annabel’s的内饰而闻名。两位创始人认为，享用价格合理的美食，不一定要以牺牲高端就餐体验为代价。比如说，所有的盘和碗都是来自意大利德鲁塔(Deruta)的手绘陶瓷，这是一个精心的选择，因为使德鲁塔闻名的明快色彩完美适合Instagram(该集团在这一社交平台上拥有5.23万名粉丝)。
Mr Lugger believes another important reason for Big Mamma’s success is that the group always had access to capital. “There is no market for financing the food market in France,” he says. “Restaurants are a real business in France but until recently, very few people were willing to invest capital in [them]. Bistronomie is very linked to the fact that no one finances big restaurants.”
卢格尔认为，Big Mamma取得成功的另一原因在于，该集团始终能获得融资。“在法国，没有为餐饮企业提供融资的市场，”他说，“餐馆在法国是一门真正的生意，但直到不久以前，很少有人愿意投资于(餐馆)。小餐馆盛行跟没人投资于大餐馆有很大关系。”
Mr Lugger and Mr Seydoux initially raised €1.5m in cash at the start of 2014 from several prominent French entrepreneurs. In a second round they received investment from telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel. In June Big Mamma did the catering for the launch party of Station F, Mr Niel’s new campus, in a former railway depot, that will house 1,000 start-ups. There are plans to open a 1,000-cover Big Mamma restaurant there in the coming months, which would make it the largest restaurant in France.
2014年初，卢格尔和塞杜从法国几位知名企业家那里筹到150万欧元资金。在第二轮融资时，他们获得了电信业亿万富豪沙维尔•尼尔(Xavier Niel)的投资。今年6月，Big Mamma为尼尔的新园区Station F的发布会承办了酒宴。该园区设在一个前火车站里，将可以容纳1000家初创企业。目前还计划在未来几个月内开张一家有1000个座位的Big Mamma餐馆，它将成为法国最大的餐馆。
French nouvelle cuisine emerged in the 1960s to rebel against the complexity of the haute cuisine that preceded it, only to be followed in the 1990s by the bistronomie movement that aimed to democratise gastronomie by making it cheaper and more accessible. Now there is a next wave of restaurateurs who want to make high-quality food available to everyone. “I believe that Big Mamma along with a few others are initiating a real change in the game. There are huge business opportunities in France for doing what we’re doing with Italian food, but with other cuisines like Asian,” Mr Lugger says.
新派法式料理运动发端于1960年代，是对此前复杂的高级烹饪的反叛，但在1990年代又出现了小餐馆运动，力求让美食民主化，使其更便宜和更容易获得。目前出现了又一波想让每个人享用到高质量餐饮的餐馆老板。“我认为，Big Mamma和其他几个商家开始真正改变游戏。眼下，法国存在类似于我们推广意大利食品这样的巨大商机，比如亚洲菜等其他菜肴，”卢格尔说。
For Big Mamma, the focus is distinctly Italian. “Big Mamma is a place where you open the door and you’re in Italy. We work very hard to make you feel like you’re in Italy,” Mr Lugger adds.
Big Mamma专注于鲜明的意大利风味。“Big Mamma是一个你就打开门，就感觉自己来到意大利的地方。我们努力让你感觉自己置身于意大利，”卢格尔接着说。
The next stage for the group is to recreate Italy in the UK, Spain, and Italy itself. It has already started to scout potential sites in London, Madrid and Milan, and plans to open restaurants in at least one of these cities next year.
Big Mamma的下一步是在英国、西班牙甚至意大利国内“再造”意大利。该集团已开始在伦敦、马德里和米兰物色潜在店址，计划明年至少在上述城市之一开设餐馆。
“Every time we make a restaurant it’s all about breaking new ground,” Mr Lugger says. “But we must not forget why it’s working. It’s working because we’re having fun.”
“我们每开张一家餐馆，都会有所突破，”卢格尔说，“但我们绝不能忘记业务为什么成功。业务成功是因为我们从中获得了乐趣。”
