Meet our General Manager, Paolo Prontera
Interview with Paolo
Paolo has been part of our restaurant family for 11 years, and has been at Beast since Day One.
Starting as a runner, he’s now General Manager. When not at Beast, you might find him enjoying a long walk, at the gym, cooking Italian food at home… but probably not in an Italian restaurant.
“I got lucky.” Paolo smiles and gestures around the bar at Beast. “I came to London in 2012, it took me a month to find a job and I became a barback at Burger & Lobster.”
And, basically, he’s been part of our restaurant family since. “From there I went to Goodman City for a few months” and then a brief return to Burger & Lobster while waiting for Beast to open. Since opening day, however, Paolo hasn’t looked back, only up. “I started as a runner. I’ve been a waiter, a keyholder, assistant manager, assistant general manager, and now general manager. The company has been good to me.”
Discovering hospitality was a happy accident. “I studied Sports Science for five years, in Italy, in Urbino.” Paolo laughs. “Yes, I know, it’s a leap! But sometimes things change in life. And here you have the chance to meet so many people from all over the world. We have amazing guests.”
As mentioned above, while Paolo likes to eat out – with sushi and Thai being particular favourites – he rarely goes to Italian restaurants. “Because like every Italian,” he says with a smile, “I am in love with my mother’s food! I come from Puglia, and grew up with vegetables, mozzarella, burrata, great olive oil, amazing seafood. I wasn’t a big meat eater before I came here. I started with real steaks in this restaurant, and medium rare, and rare, they were a challenge!”
These days, if you’re offering, Paolo will take a Galician bone-in ribeye, with truffle chips and truffle sauce. Paolo shrugs. “I love truffles.” But that love of seafood still comes through. “And scallops. Not just one. Several. With that amazing miso butter on top. And two, maybe three legs of King Crab...” Well, you can take the man out of Puglia…
Our Wine Selection
Gabriele Galuppo, our Head Sommelier at Beast, has curated a new wine selection, 'Beast's Island Wines: Where Land and Sea meet Fire and Wind'.
Inspired by the trip to Etna, Sicily, Gabriele brought together some of the best wines from the volcanic islands of Greece, Sicily and Spain, where you can find all the natural elements in one place; some of the volcanos still remain active today. "I have a huge respect for what Mother Nature has created for us. The power that comes straight from the centre of the Earth."
Gabriele's personal favourites from the list include:
Millesulmare, Grecanico Dorato, an absolute beauty from Etna, Sicily, is very elegant, made from vineyards at over 1100 metres elevation.
Gaia Wild Ferment Assyrtiko is a unique white from Santorini, Greece.
It is produced from the indigenous Assyrtiko grapes, fermented using only wild yeast. It is a perfect pairing with our live Norwegian King Crab.
And, of course, Tradicional, Listan Negro, with its gentle tannins and lingering red fruit notes, is a traditional wine from Tenerife, Canary Islands, where it thrives in these volcanic soils and can't be found in this form anywhere else in the world.
