Almost everyone , who comes to Auroville will be told to try out Tanto for pizza, pasta and lots of other yummy dishes. But very few know the man behind this success story. Can you please tell us a bit about your journey?
The restaurant called now Tanto for the first two years of its inception had no name at all. It was the first pizzeria in Auroville and the first wood fire oven in Tamil Nadu and possibly in India .Due to the success of Tanto there are around 50 pizzerias in the 5 km radius around Auroville and most of them our ex staff extensively trained by us. There were limited cuisines at the time in Auroville and Pondicherry inspite of the international atmosphere. Tanto was created to offer authentic home made cooking/osteria or trattoria as it is called in italian and most recipes are that of my mother including the chocolate cake.
Who is Daniele? Where are you originally from and what did you do before you came to India?When did you come here and why?
I was born in Italy of Jewish parents, a polish mother and half Russian Italian father and studied in Jerusalem and came to Auroville in the 70s and then went to work in Paris as a radio journalist running a channel for Italian expats in France and eventually and was an art dealer before coming back to Auroville, to the place where my heart was and is.
How long did it take until you started Tanto? Any funny story about the first few years?
When you started Tanto, Pizza was definitely not as popular in India as it is now. Did you face any challenges to make your customers understand the concept?
Tanto opened by chance in a place where when the previous restaurant closed and many tried and couldn’t get the place going and that’s when I took it up. When we first started it was really Italian…no ketchup, no Tabasco sauce, one chicken dish but over the years we did have to adapt to local palette tho’ we still try to be as authentic as possible. We get usual complaints about the al dente pasta because local customers are used to soft noodles, or lack of spices/masalas on the food.
Do you still eat Pizza? Which one is your favourite one? what is the secret to a good restaurant?
I always and only eat at my restaurant and it has got better and better as the staff has really understood the concept of real Italian and desist from sprinkling unnecessary additions. In fact am unable to go out and eat elsewhere because i don’t know where to eat. My favourite is the Margarita pizza and the pomodoro pasta.
About 4 or 5 years ago, you also opened a resort called Tanto Far Beach in Kalapet off the ECR road. How and why did that happen?
What is special about this resort?
Who is your target customer here and what is the booking process?
We offer accommodation on similar principles of the restaurant which is: affordable and simple b&b on the beach. We are most suited for families with children and guests interested in Auroville or coming for workshops, training in Auroville. So not for the ‘regular’ types. As we are quite off beat and need similar clientele. Also, we clean the beach each week and it is an Aurovilian hang out so very frequented.
Tanto is a unit of the international community of Auroville, does this mean you run the business in anyway different from what you would do outside of Av?
All the proceeds of the restaurant are contributed to Auroville so we work in a different spirit. The act of giving & sharing extends from start to finish in our restaurant and this makes it different from running a regular ‘commercial’ restaurant. From the beginning we offer free pizzas/food to the village schools, orphanages every week since our inception and those children who first didn’t know how to handle a pizza and would mash it up like rice, now love to eat pizza. Which by the way is actually healthy food in Italy (unlike the American fast food version). We have organic spelt flour option for the pizzas and our raviolios and lasagna are only made using organic spelt.
Tanto was the first Italian restaurant in The Pondicherry area, now it feels like there are more pizza joints here than in Rome. Which makes you ThE PIZZA PIONEER. how do you feel about having inspired so many people and why is Tanto still the all-time favourite of most?
Italian cooking is about simplicity. The simplest best quality ingredients put together to make very tasty food without spices to bring out the inherent flavour of that ingredient. And the trick here to make it is to use the freshest ingredients and the only way we could do this was by growing a lot of the ingredients ourselves. So a lot of it is a garden to plate experience. In Far beach, where we run a small cafe the rucola/rocket leaves and tomatoes are picked when the customer orders the salad(!) Literally that fresh. Also our desserts and gelatos are all made in house also uses the milk of our own cows most of them being the Indian gir cow as opposed to the hybrid cows seen around in plentiful. Also we use real cheese that is expensive unlike commercially available cheese which isn’t even made from milk.