Giovanni Bolandrini is the Founder and CEO of Pier88 Group, a leader in fine dining and lifestyle hospitality in Egypt. He sat down with MET&T at his Pier88 Almaza Bay restaurant on Egypt’s North Coast to talk about how the unique trajectory of his diverse personal background led him to ultimately land in Egypt, the struggles and hardships of starting over as a foreign entrepreneur in Egypt, and what’s next for the Pier88 family of restaurants in Egypt and beyond.
Interview by John Navarre, Editor-in-Chief, Middle East Travel and Tourism (MET&T)
MET&T: Giovanni, we’re here in beautiful Almaza Bay in Egypt. Thank you so much for joining us for this interview. Let me start with your upbringing. You’re Italian, so where are you from in Italy?
Giovanni Bolandrini: Actually, I was born in the region of Calabria, near Sicily. It’s actually the last piece of Italy; the last of the peninsula of Italy. It’s a very poor region, but very beautiful. Probably one of the most beautiful regions, surrounded by mountains in the center and sea on the side. So I was born on the sea.
My mother was from there, and my father was from the north. So we moved when I was very, very little. I grew up in Bergamo, actually, near Milan and near Como. And then I moved to London when I was twenty.
MET&T: What prompted you to move to London?
Giovanni: I was one of these kids that didn’t come from a very wealthy family. I came from a working family, working class and very Catholic. Already at seven, I was dreaming of becoming an actor. But I was starting the normal life of a small village – going to work, going to church. And then I finished the army one day, and I took a small bag and I hitch hiked to London. This was 1982.
I arrived in London as a fresh twenty-year-old without knowing London. I didn’t speak a word of English. I actually slept on the benches for about a week until finally I met someone who said, “No, no, no. Come stay with me at home.” And that is when I start to go to work.
MET&T: So, I assume you eventually got on your feet in London. What did you end up doing?
Giovanni: Well, actually, when I went to London, the real dream was I wanted to learn English and then go to New York to attend the New York School of Acting. I wanted to be the new James Dean. You know when you’re twenty-one and you have this dream – this craziness that drives you to do things that you will never do with rationality. But these dreams are crazy and on-the-edge enough to give you the power and the stamina to do things.
I’ve always been a very good boy. I had never been in trouble. So, I started to work immediately. I started working in a restaurant, and then I got into fashion.
MET&T: Were you doing those two things simultaneously?
Giovanni: No. Actually, when I started, I was doing maybe fourteen or fifteen hours a day in Pizza Land. I was washing dishes in the kitchen. There were a couple of people who used to come and eat pizza almost daily, and one of them was one of the owner of a franchise shop of Benetton. And so I remember very well, I said, “Please let me work in the shop.”
Then one day he said, “Look, I have a shop where I have a position. You’re going to be in the storeroom.” I thought, “Oh my God.” So, I started to go and work there, and it felt like I found the dream.
After two days, the manager called me and said, “You have to come upstairs because there’s nobody here.” I went upstairs, and I did the biggest sales they’ve ever done. So he said, “You’re not going to go in the stock room anymore. You’re going to stay here.”
After six months, they could see that I was very into it. I was very enthusiastic. I was not missing work. I was actually good. So they started to give me the management of a shop. And I was only twenty-two or twenty-three. It was an experience. And then from there, I started my career in fashion.
MET&T: Which is harder: that experience growing up in London and trying to make it there, or trying to run a business in Egypt as a foreigner?
Giovanni: Well, this is a very nice question and it’s a very intelligent question because that has a lot of meaning behind it. I don’t know. Both, because being a foreigner here, everybody thinks that you have it made. But no, you’re not advantaged in this country, being a foreigner. I tell you, I love this country, and my children do also; but it’s not easy.
Watch the full video interview on The Egypt Travel Channel.
MET&T: Fast forward ten or fifteen years when you’re in London. How did the idea for you to get involved in Egypt come about?
Giovanni: To be honest, I thought that I would never leave London because London was my city. I grew up there. I knew everyone. By the 2000s, I was at my peak. By then, I had a very famous store there where all the actors, singers, footballers used to come. Name them. I think it would be easier to tell you the few who didn’t come than those who used to come. I mean, from Madonna to George Michael to The Rolling Stones, everyone.
Naguib Sawiris, who is my dear friend, he was one of my regular clients. He was a very nice man, but I didn’t know who he was. He was inviting me a lot of times to come to Egypt. And I said, “When I decide, I’m going to come.” He said, “Ok, I’m not going to invite you anymore.” But when I came here, I saw who he was. My position did not change, but I said, “Wow, I didn’t know who this man was. He was so kind and so nice.”
So, I came here. I visited El Gouna. And then I was bored, and then I went around looking at property in El Gouna. And all of the sudden, I bought a house. And then I told Naguib when I was leaving, “Thank you. Oh, I bought a house.” And he said, “What? Really?” I said, “Yes.”
My wife and my children used to come and use it. I was still in London, but I decided to buy three houses there because I thought it was a good expansion. By 2016, I had already opened Pier88 El Gouna, which was really like our own restaurant to eat at. But I always liked this business actually. And then I moved here in 2016 and opened Pier88 in Zamalek with proper branding and everything.
But, of course, this was like the test for me because when I came here, I think I was fifty-four fifty-five. Again, I repeated what I did at twenty-one years old with the craziness of twenty years old. I just left the country. I left England, and I came here.
MET&T: When you opened Pier88in El Gouna, which was your first one, what was it like trying to get that off the ground? Did it immediately take off, or did it stay just your and your friends’ restaurant for a while?
Giovanni: No, it stayed there at the beginning. I was kind of shy to enter this because it was a new business for me. I came from a luxury fashion business. And I had a lot of friends that were telling me, “Are you crazy? You’re in London. You’re under the spotlight with all the footballers.”
To start as a boy from a little town, and then you start your career and enter into something that you never imagined. I was a crazy Rolling Stone fan. I escaped from the army to go to a concert of Mick Jagger. And then you end up going out with Bill Wyman, with Mick Jagger, staying in the club together, drinking together. I mean, it was like a dream come true.
I always do things slowly, step-by-step, you know. Maybe it’s my Catholic mentality that my grandmother gave me. I do things slowly to make them solid before you rush into it. So, I was very shy, but slowly I started to change the kitchen while learning how to do things. My mom also used to come and go in the kitchen to teach the people how to make proper pasta. It was slow like this until 2016, then I said, “We need to open in Cairo.”
I’m happy because I changed the footprint in this city, in Cairo. It was all different because when I opened, it was not just about food. It was about an experience, a lifestyle. I started to put fashion inside the restaurant, and it changed people, the dress. I put in videos and shows. Then everything started.
MET&T: After you launched Pier88 in Cairo and that started doing well, tell me about the next couple of projects after that. How fast did you launch the next one?
Giovanni: Slowly. My footprint here was becoming more remarkable and deeper. The first three or four years were very difficult. As you know, you’ve been here twenty-two years, businesses normally last two or three years and bye-bye. But Pier88 is the one that started to put a proper basis down.
In 2017, I got the opportunity to open here in Almaza Bay, which was a project that I actually started in 2009 before the revolution. It ended up opening in 2017 with a very small place. So slowly slowly, I adapted and changed again. A lot of artwork, a lot of details, a lot of things that people didn’t want to do. It’s hard.
MET&T: Was this area already starting to take off back in 2017? Was anything here?
Giovanni: No. No. I can tell you that the first time that we opened here, the income that we did in the whole season is equal to what we probably did yesterday until eight o’clock in the evening.
MET&T: Then what made you choose Almaza Bay as opposed to somewhere a little bit further east?
Giovanni: Again, instinct. I came, I looked around, and I said, “Yes, this is the place.” Instinct, pure instinct.
MET&T: And would you say that’s what made you choose the Zamalek location?
Giovanni: That is another crazy thing because I got this location through my partners. And everybody said, “Are you crazy? This place has a bad eye. Everybody who tried to open a place here failed in the last twenty years.” And I said, “Okay, let me not be the next one.” And I destroyed that fate.
MET&T: Ok, by this point you have Pier88 El Gouna, Pier88 Zamalek, and Pier88 Almaza Bay. What came after that?
Giovanni: Pier88 Pyramid Hills, which was also the first project for which I designed the interior myself. I believe I put my touches inside. For me, they are from my heart because I was at Pyramid Hills one hundred percent. For example, I was there looking at the ceiling, telling them how to paint the ceiling. And the guy said, “This guy is crazy. He’s staying overnight looking at the ceiling.”
But if you go, I believe it’s the best in the city. It’s not a copy. The materials used are completely different than everybody and everywhere else. And also there we start a trend because I saw famous architects there taking design from the windows, the cement, the brass, the marble. This was 2019.
MET&T: So, up until now, with all of the Pier88 branches and then Italiano in Zed Park, it’s all Italian cuisine. How did the concept for Khufu’s come about?
Giovanni: We wanted to open a restaurant in the pyramids. And I said, “Well, it’s stupid to have a pizza place or whatever. I mean, we are in Egypt.” So at first, we wanted to go with a different concept of Lebanese fusion cuisine. And then we decided to go for Egyptian. But then I said, “No. If I do Egyptian, it has to be something different.”
We have 110 million people here, but you’ve never heard of an Egyptian restaurant [outside of Egypt]. You never hear anywhere, “I’m going to an Egyptian restaurant.” You hear Lebanese, you hear Syrian, you hear others, but never Egyptian. So it was a challenge that I put to myself very, very discreetly. And it was the biggest challenge of my life because obviously I don’t know Egyptian cuisine.
But I had a great chef, Mostafa Seif, who was working with me already from before. He was very passionate about all this and I gave my trust to him. And, of course, I guided him on plating and how to put the whole movie together; not just the one in the kitchen, but the one on the table with the people starting to come out to give an experience inside the restaurant. And it was cool.
MET&T: How did you meet Mustafa?
Giovanni: One of my very good chefs, Johnny, my pastry chef, said, “Oh, I have a great chef. He’s in Paris, but he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to be in Paris.” I said, “Is he good?” He said, “Yes, he’s very good.” So, I said, “Okay, tell him to come to Almaza to see me.” So, he came back. He took his little car, and he came here six hours traveling. I liked him straight away, and he agreed straight away to work with me.
MET&T: The thing I love about Khufu’s and the cuisine there is that it’s like an artistic twist, an artistic interpretation of Egyptian food. So it’s things that folks know, but at the same time, they may not recognize them on the plate.
Giovanni: You said the right word – an interpretation. In food, there is a criteria, but food is subjective. I mean, you might like it spicy, you might not like spicy. You might like red sauce. There is a criteria that when a plate is created, this is the plate, but then you can twist it yourself. That’s why there is so much fusion today of food.
In Italy, I don’t know how many plates we have. Each region has 100, 200, 300 plates. So here as well, we decided to use traditional recipes, but then with a different twist. For me, it was like when I was working in fashion – instead of dressing a guy or a girl, I was dressing the plates.
MET&T: And so were the dishes you have at Khufu’s a collaboration between or a melding of your and Mustafa’s minds?
Giovanni: No, it was Mustafa. It was him because I didn’t know [Egyptian food]. I was just guiding him how to make this plate look stunning. You can eat it everywhere, but it depends how you serve it, how you design it on the plate, how you bring it out and all this. We didn’t want a cheap show. We wanted a very elegant show on the table.
MET&T: What about the reception to the cuisine there at Khufu’s? How has it been, and how was it in the beginning?
Giovanni: It was hard, especially with the Egyptian audience. But we made it straight away. Why? Because of the people. They saw something that they’d never seen before. The reaction of the public was amazing. The people were really, really enthusiastic.
MET&T: Let me ask you now about your next couple of projects. What do you have coming up?
Giovanni: I would probably open another place just next door to here in a resort called Silver Sand. We want to do the same concept as here because this, for me, this is amazing. I can stay here morning, afternoon, and night. I never get bored here. It’s homey. It’s nice. It’s extremely comfortable to be here. And then, I think maybe it’s time that we start to expand and start abroad.
MET&T: And over in El Gouna, you now also have Don Bisho’s, right? Is that open yet, and what’s it like?
Giovanni: Yes, it has been open in El Gouna since May 2024. It’s like a little corner of a village in Italy, so it’s very cozy. It’s not big; it’s very small. We don’t have many dishes. It’s authentic. It’s like a corner in an old place in Italy with a very traditional southern Italian cuisine.
MET&T: Khufu’s Bistro. I’ve been hearing a lot about that and seeing a lot about that online. How is it different from Khufu’s Restaurant?
Giovanni: It’s completely different because for this, Mustafa and I invented the menu. The menu did not exist. It’s a fusion. We wanted to try to fuse Mediterranean plates with Egyptian culture and Egyptian flavors. That’s why you find the tartar with hummus and things that are Egyptian mixed with a French dish or with Greek feta. We made something completely new.
MET&T: And finally, let me ask you a couple of personal questions, personal favorites. What about your favorite dish on the menu at Pier88?
Giovanni: I like linguine allo scoglio because it’s the only plate in the summer I used to eat. Also in Calabria, when I used to go to holiday. Very simple, like crabs, mussels, clams, shrimps, and olive oil.
MET&T: I know the different regions of Italy are very different in terms of many things, especially the culinary experience. Are the menus of Pier88 and Italiano and Don Bisho Calabrian, or are they more pan-Italian?
Giovanni: No, it’s pan-Italian, but the pasta is all what I learned from my mother. Also, I grew up in the north in Bergamo where polenta is our main dish, and in Milan we have the risotto. So I also picked some plates from the north of Italy, but also some from Northern Europe where I like in Scandinavia. My wife is Scandinavian, actually. So I took a little bit of everything, and I put it together to be more continental.
MET&T: What’s your favorite historical area in Egypt?
Giovanni: Apart of the pyramids, which I see every day, I would say downtown Cairo. There are a lot of places undiscovered there, and probably more that I have not discovered myself.
MET&T: What’s your favorite football team worldwide?
Giovanni: Well, I’m a Fiorentina fan. Everybody says, “How come? You are from Bergamo. You’re a Fiorentina fan?” I don’t know. Maybe this is from when I was five or six years old and it was Fiorentina. Fiorentina it is.
MET&T: Since you lived in London for so long, do you also have a favorite team in the UK?
Giovanni: Yes. In the UK I have a few teams because when I lived there, I was very close to two football superstars. Freddie Neumann, who lived with me for five years used to be one of the most famous footballers in Arsenal. And the other, Roberto Di Matteo, was my best man at my wedding. He ended up being the manager of Chelsea and the first one winning the Champions League. I mean, I was with him in Munich when they won the first Champions League.
MET&T: Well, I was excited to come here, I was excited to meet you, and I was especially excited to hear your stories. So, thank you very much, Giovanni.
Giovanni: Thank you so much.
