Meeting the chefs behind Preston's best pizza

Lancashire Post

To cap off the grand finale of Lancashire Post Season 3 on Preston's top pizzas, we went down to Cafe Bar to meet the gentlement behind the city's best pepperoni pizza to find out what goes into their stellar food...

Transcript

00:00After LPE Season 3 crowned the best pizza in Preston, we went down to meet Adoni and

00:08Atam at Cafe Bar on Winkley Street to learn their secrets.

00:11Right, so I'm here with the two gentlemen behind the Cafe Bar and I'm really pleased

00:15to say that they are the winners of Season 3 of LPE's for the best pepperoni pizza in

00:20Preston. So guys, I'd just like to give you this. Congratulations.

00:23Thank you very much, Jack. Thank you, Jack.

00:25You're welcome. Here we go. How about it?

00:28And so when we came round to see the Cafe Bar, guys, and to try the food, the main thing

00:33that stood out was just how authentic it is. So just talk me through, what makes an authentic

00:37pizza in your minds?

00:39In my opinion, the most important thing on a pizza is quality of ingredients, quality

00:43of sauces. The most important is the cheese, in my opinion. Since COVID and since Brexit,

00:51things have been harder to source, so each day it's harder and harder to keep consistency,

00:55keep the same cheese, keep the same toppings. Sometimes it's not necessarily a bad thing,

01:01because sometimes you can find a new product that you wouldn't have found another way.

01:08Pizza is also very important because it's shared. People can share a pizza, you can

01:13have it on your own, but most people like to share a pizza. So it brings people together,

01:18it's like a coffee, in my opinion. Coffee brings people together, pizza brings people together.

01:22Yeah. Do you think with things like the ingredients, you've mentioned how getting the small things

01:26right is really crucial, and do you think other places can almost, not disregard, they

01:31can forget about how important it is to do the smaller things right, build your fundamentals,

01:35and like you've said to me in the past, get good ingredients, good price, in a good location,

01:40and that's it. You've got a perfect kind of recipe.

01:43Yeah, I mean I was always told the secret to success is location, location, location,

01:48good quality food, good service, and a good price. It's easy to let one of them go by

01:53the wayside and neglect your service, neglect your quality, and you can easily go down a

02:01slippery slope, so you've got to constantly keep on it, constantly keep looking for new

02:05things, and yeah.

02:07And of course it's the experience, so many years, you know, we have the recipe for us,

02:12so many years, Mr. George teaches us many things, you know, and we keep the same, never

02:18left or right, straight to the same recipe.

02:20That's actually a very good point Adonis, it's not something new that we're doing, we've

02:24had this restaurant in our family for 30 years, my father opened it and now we're running

02:29it, and we learn from him, we learn from the best, so it's tried and tested, and we're

02:34just trying to continue, and make sure we continue the good name.

02:38You've been doing this a long time, do you still have the same love for it that you did

02:44at the start?

02:45We wouldn't do it if we didn't, so I'll give you one example, after Covid, Adonis, we're

02:51neighbours from Greece, he decided to go home, back to sunny roads, fast forward two years

02:58later and Adonis decided to come back, because we've got something pretty special here, me,

03:03Adonis and Mateos, we go way back, we were working on some of the busiest tavernas and

03:08restaurants in Greece, and we learnt a lot of great skills there, how to work, interact

03:14with people, and we tried to put that in here, so we want you to feel like you're on holiday

03:18when you come here, and we're quite proud of what we've got here.

03:22Exactly that we do, we want the people to feel like they're on holiday, I have many

03:27customers say to me, you know if I come to your place, I feel today I'm on holiday, and

03:32that's good for the people, you know, to escape a little bit from the reality, you know, coming

03:38here, listen to Greek music, little Greek jokes of course, you know, we're like a family,

03:45many people feel like a family.

03:47I bet you get a lot of really loyal customers as well, because they're made to feel so welcome

03:52when they come here, it's like a family, you must get a lot of people who have a weekly

03:56thing where they just come along every single week and it's part of just what they do with

03:58the family.

03:59You set your watch by some people in this place, we have our Saturday ladies, we have

04:04our Wednesday gals, we have our Golden gals, we've seen them, when I took over the restaurant

04:09in 2013, there were babies born that year, and now they're sort of adults, you know,

04:14teenagers.

04:15Yeah, that's beautiful, you know.

04:18It makes our job all the worthwhile when we hear the good feedback that we feel like we've

04:21been on holiday, and we get the same satisfaction here in Preston than we did in Rhodes, which

04:26is nice.

04:27So it's about people.

04:29We're people's people, we like people.

04:31100%.

04:32Right, talking about the pizza now, we've mentioned how important it is to get good

04:35quality ingredients from good quality suppliers, and obviously doing things to the recipe which

04:39you've had for so long, but you've also been judged as having the best pizza in Preston,

04:44so what do you think makes it special, aside from those things like you're saying in the

04:48ingredients, is it just the love that you put into it, is it the caring and attention?

04:51The dough.

04:52The dough does need a lot of attention and care.

04:55There will be times when you come on out of dough on a busy Saturday night, and you will

05:00be tempted to make it there and then and get them last few pizzas out.

05:04We will never do that.

05:05The dough is made today and it's used tomorrow.

05:07It needs time to grow, it needs time to ferment and build that taste.

05:13You've got to respect the dough.

05:15Once the dough is prepared, it's not manhandled in a certain way, it's lifted and treated

05:20with respect, because if it's handled in a certain way and too rough, you lose that

05:25flavour that you spend a lot of time trying to get in there.

05:29You'll lose that just by mistreating it.

05:32Because extra doping, you know, the doping, you can find everywhere, but all the secrets,

05:37if you know the restaurants have name about the pizzas, all the secrets is in the dough.

05:43100%.

05:44I think that's the thing which a lot of people might just push by the waistline and say it's

05:47just the base of the pizza, that's it, it's what's on top.

05:50You can find easy, you know, now in the market you can find any doping you like.

05:55You can buy a flower, but the thing is how you make the dough.

05:58Definitely.

05:59Talking about the kind of USP that you're looking to create at the restaurant, you've

06:05already spoken about how you want people to come and feel like they're on holiday here,

06:08but what part of that do you think keeps people coming back?

06:12Do you think it is the fact that it's a family affair, it's got the good quality food, is

06:16it just the whole experience, it's not just the food?

06:19Because we don't see the customers like the customers, you know.

06:22We know the names, we know his children, you understand me?

06:25Yeah.

06:26So that I think will make a big difference.

06:29You know I come before one week in England, in Preston, and the first one hour I've been

06:36in Preston, I go to say hello to all my friends, you know, the butcher in the open market,

06:42my barber.

06:43After two years, and everybody recognize me in a second, you know, hands, kiss.

06:48Give me a start at the beginning, if you don't kiss me, I'll march on the taxi machine.

06:53Even the postman comes here and gets a kiss, everyone gets a hug and a kiss here, it is

06:57that personal touch, it's a little bit different, a little bit different.

07:00And everybody here wants to come to work, that's, I don't know, you can't wait to come

07:05to work.

07:06It's like you say, you look forward to Wednesday, you look forward to seeing your Wednesday

07:09gals, Saturday, Saturday gals, it's...

07:11Brilliant, excellent.

07:12Well guys, thank you so much for speaking to me, congratulations again.

07:17It's a lovely spot you've got here, and congratulations on being the winners of Best Pizza in Preston.

07:21Thank you, it really does mean a lot, Dan, thank you very much.

07:23No worries.

07:24Cheers guys.

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