At Valduggio, in the Piemonte lands, where Giovanni Rotti was born, only taps were produced. No special opportunities were offered to anyone who had ambitions for another job, back in the Fifties.
Giovanni tried to work in a tap factory, as all his fellow villagers did, but after three years of work he understood that the assembly line – with its rules and its real opportunities to build up a career – was not his direction.
Giovanni knew what he liked: serving food for people sitting at a table. The restaurant would be his future. Despite its less encouraging possibilities for a solid career (do not forget: it was in the Fifties!) restaurants have a strong attraction on Giovanni. We was proposed a job as a waiter in a restaurant in Turin, run by his father’s cousin, and he seized the occasion.
“A waiter must know how the kitchen work, otherwise no efficient service at the tables can be performed” his boss told him, “so you have to work some months in the kitchen first.”
After three months of humble and passionate work in the kitchen, Giovanni’s boss kept his word and allowed him to work in the restaurant room as a waiter. “You have learnt enough in the kitchen, now you can work as a waiter.” Unexpectedly, Giovanni decided to continue working in the kitchen. What he had seen in the kitchen – the dish preparation and the work of the chef – looked more interesting and promising to him as compared to the work of the waiter or even the Maitre.
Giovanni built his background in Turin, and later on started touring from town to town for new experiences, and worked in restaurants in Venice and Milan.
At that time Giovanni discovered his passion for quality wine, sparkling wine and liqueurs in general and conceived his idea of wine tasting, the activity which would be more and more important in the future years of the restaurant industry.
In the Sixties he reached Montecatini Terme, and here he was doomed to stop. He started working in the kitchen staff of the Grand Hotel La Pace.
In 1967 he made his most crucial decision: opening “Le Torri di Brolio”, an ambiente for wine tasting in the centre of Montecatini, opposite Grand Hotel La Pace. Giovanni recalls: “12.000 bottles of prosecco and 10.000 of wine per year were no joke…”
In 1984 he started his adventure in the restaurant industry, and opened a restaurant in town.
