Pirata Group co-founder and CEO on celebrating a decade in Hong Kong's F&B industry

Christian Talpo, the co-founder and CEO of Pirata Group, tells David Ho about starting a dining empire and surviving a decade in Hong Kong's notoriously tough F&B scene

Surviving for a decade as an F&B business in Hong Kong is no cakewalk. Unyieldingly high rents, stiff competition, a transient population, and the struggles of the protest and COVID years sure add a lot of pressure to the mix. In fact, over a quarter of Michelin-starred restaurants in the city have shuttered since the Michelin Guide began in Hong Kong in 2009.  

So it's only right that we should celebrate the hard working survivors that are the longstanding establishments we love to dine at. Christian Talpo and Manuel Palacio, the co-founders of Pirata Group, have seen Pirata grow from a single Italian restaurant into the powerhouse group it is today. The group now serves 1.5 million guests annually through 15 brands and 26 restaurants, along with two cloud kitchens across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. 

Talpo, now acting as CEO of Pirata Group, tells #legend about running their decade long adventure and what lies ahead.  

Congratulations on Pirata Group’s 10th anniversary! How has the journey been? 

Pirata, in Italian and Spanish, the nationality of myself and my business partner, has the same meaning - “Pirate.” The reason we chose this particular name was that we saw businesses as like a bit of a pirate voyage, meeting challenges with songs and embracing different adventures in life. 

We certainly had our work cut out for us. These last 10 years have been a wild ride. We experienced more than the usual turmoil that you would in the normal running of a business. We had some unprecedented, once in a lifetime happenings. One being social unrest in 2019 which lasted for about six months, very close to our restaurants. And as we were recovering from that, we were hit by COVID, but so was everyone else. So, in a way that only strengthened our resolve to continue working to the best of our ability. 

So, yes, it has been an extraordinary 10 years with heartache, but also with some great successes. We were blessed to have met a lot of beautiful, wonderful people. Both as a part of our staff, as well as our guests. We serve almost over 1.5 million guests a year. That’s a lot of people. 

So, what is the secret to running great restaurants? 

I’m not sure if there is a secret per se. I think one common denominator is the passion that we have for great food and great people - guests, as well as staff. So, I think if I could point to a reason for success, it’s hiring top quality people, empowering them to do their job, getting out of their way, and letting them work and be their best. 

Something we are very proud of having created are restaurants where we, ourselves, would like to go and dine at. You can almost say we have created these restaurants for ourselves. So, “What am I looking for in a restaurant when I go out to eat?” That’s the first question I ask myself. The answer I gave myself in those very early days was that, you know, a place where I can have great food, great service and great value for money. It seemed so obvious to me that these are what most people want and are also what I’m looking for. 

When I say value for money, I don’t mean cheap. “Value for money” and “inexpensive” are two different things. I can bring something to the table that is very good but if it is overpriced, you would enjoy it once in a blue moon, maybe once a year. But if I bring you the same item at a very reasonable price, you’ll be able to enjoy it more times over the course of a month or a week. 

So we always ask ourselves when we bring something to the market, “How much can we share this with the guest without breaking the bank?” rather than “How much would we charge the guest without being called out?” That’s the most important thing. Value for money is the secret, which is not that secret, since it's all over our website. 

How do you keep your dining outlets and concepts fresh yet familiar for your loyal clientele? 

This is an easy question to answer. We go back to passion. We are truly passionate about our food. We’re always looking for ways to make our menus interesting and value added. 

It is sometimes a difficult process because you need to strike the right balance of keeping the familiarity that people have with a certain brand, so you want to make sure that you keep on offering the same dishes that made you famous over the years. At the same time you also want to innovate and make things fresh and relevant, to keep people coming back. 

We look at our sales mix and very ruthlessly change the items that are not selling or working so well. We continuously taste both the items we currently have on the menu as well as possible, new items. Sometimes, a dish that was originally good several years ago is not anymore done in the correct way or may have components that aren’t available any longer. We need to be constantly tasting and be at the top of the mountain when it comes to offers. 

At the same time, another huge part of our success is our people. Making sure that we hire the best people and that our people are constantly well trained, is very important to us. 

It’s no secret that this is a tough business, especially in Hong Kong. What have been some of the biggest challenges? How did you overcome them? 

First and foremost, you handle challenges by staying calm and not making rash decisions. So everything we have done, we have done calmly, looking at the situation carefully and studying our options. There were times, obviously, where the premise was completely unexpected such as the social unrest in 2019. We overcame it by staying true to our belief that tough times don’t last but tough people do; and by protecting our team and our resources. 

COVID was somewhat more complicated, and obviously we were in the same situation as everyone else in Hong Kong; we weren’t special or different. Calmly, we simply followed what was mandated. We tried our very best to innovate with meal periods and entertaining campaigns that were specific to each new social distancing measure. We leaned on creativity to stay relevant and provide our team and guests some comfort during the most uncertain times, while staying safe and keeping abreast of what the situation was. 

A beautiful thing to note during the COVID years was the amazing teamwork that all the restaurant companies had. We were constantly in contact with all the restaurant companies, freely sharing tips and tricks to make your restaurant work in difficult times. So contrary to what people might believe, yes - there is always a lot of competition among the restaurants. But during that time, especially, there was also a lot of solidarity as well which was beautiful to see. 

When it comes to business challenges, we try to address those challenges the best way we can with our best foot forward, from a place of strength. We double down on what we know we’re good at, and what people know us for. We do believe that by staying true, honest, diligent and tough, you can overcome most situations. 

On the flipside, what is it about the F&B business that still sparks joy for you? 

What sparks joy for me is to see my team grow. It’s very cool over the years to see people that went from waiter to captain, assistant manager to manager and now they’re operations managers. Or from cooks they are now head chefs. Nothing could fill me more with joy. 

Also at the same time - you. To have people such as yourself asking me these kinds of questions - it fills me with joy because there is someone who believes in what we do and we are somehow relevant in this day and age. So, it's amazing. We feel that we’re doing what we said we were going to be doing. 

We never started this business with the idea of opening several new restaurants and becoming a restaurant group. In fact, my partner and I didn’t consider a group until we had four restaurants. Until then, we were just, you know, feeling lucky to be successful in a couple of ventures. So, I guess we’re still very thankful for that and we just don't take anything for granted and we just keep going. And we try to bring more happiness and success to the table.

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What are some things we can look forward to as part of Pirata Group’s 10th anniversary? 

There are many things going on! We have given Pirata, our group’s namesake restaurant, a refreshed look and feel with new artwork and interior flourishes. The place is brimming with fantastic new dishes and artisanal infusion beverages from the bar. Definitely look out for our menus, which have just launched through our 10th anniversary champagne dinner. 

We’ve completed facelifts in TokyoLima and The Optimist. We are also launching new menus in Honjo, The Pizza Project, and will continue with our popular monthly limited time offers in Pici. Look out for the hairy crab. We’ve sponsored the Sampdoria Club Hong Kong T.T., the ambassadors for Unione Calcio Sampdoria in Asia, to celebrate our Italian heritage and passion for football. We are also bringing back Pici Pasta Run, our iconic charity costumed race, on October 20. 

Finally, we’ll be wrapping up the year and our 10th anniversary celebrations with a Trip to Maldives giveaway, so stay tuned for that. 

Besides the anniversary celebrations, what’s next for the group? 

Ah, the future is certainly something I love to look at. I like my past, but I’d rather focus on the future. We’re looking into bringing to life a couple of new concepts that we are working on right now. Pici is a fantastic brand that we want to further develop, as well as Pane e Latte, our coffee shop slash bakery that we think is going to do really well at a multi-outlet level in Hong Kong. 

At the same time we would like the opportunity to go international. For sure, we have something to say internationally, ideally in Asia. We shouldn't forget that Hong Kong is our home, our core market. Therefore, we also want to keep reinvesting into our restaurants in Hong Kong. 

Also see: Where to eat in Hong Kong this October