By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 17 June 2014:
La Dolce Vita pizza restaurant opened for customers in Tripoli last week – just in . . .[restrict]time for the holy month of Ramadan which starts tomorrow, Thursday 18 June.
The restaurant, located on the edge of Ben Ashour near the popular Brega Supermarket, boasts that it makes ‘’real Italian pizza in Tripoli’’ and friends of the Libya Herald who have tried it seem to agree. But it is no surprise that owners, siblings Wael and Mohamed Abu Alkhairat, make such a boast.
They are no strangers to the food sector in Libya, having previously owned the popular Café Adrian next to the Radisson Blue hotel. They also told this newspaper that they are the exclusive distributors for Caffe Toraldo coffee beans in Libya.
But what probably makes the brothers different to many other Libyans is the degree to which they have specialised and taken their profession seriously. Whilst many Libyans would have learnt about the food retail sector through working at a café or restaurant or by just trial and error, Wael and Mohamed went to Italy to learn the trade.
”We went to Italy and got involved in the Italian food sector’’, Wael explained to this publication. ”We studied pizza and ice-cream at university and then we returned after eight months to Italy after graduating to have full-time practice in a real ice-cream and pizza shop’’, he explained.
The brothers explained how they lived and trained under ‘’a real maestro’’ with whom they became very good friends – so good that they have brought him back with them to work in Dolce Vita in Tripoli. As far as they know, they are the only Italian restaurant with an Italian still working in Tripoli.
The brothers have also got an interior design and store-fitting company which they use to design and fit their outlets.
The business brothers had no hesitation about investing and opening a new restaurant in Tripoli at a time when many entrepreneurs would think twice. They feel they understand the market and saw a gap for quality, genuine Italian ice-cream and pizza.
The Libyan market is in fact already full of ice-cream and pizza outlets, but many are copycat operations with little training or experience catering for the budget end of the market. Taste and quality is often sacrificed for low prices.
The brothers are optimistic and bullish about the future of the Libyan food sector saying that they will be ‘’opening more branches of Dolce Vita as well as other projects once the country is stable and peaceful, inshallah’’.
Meanwhile, no doubt this month of Ramadan many Tripolitans will welcome this latest quality addition to their choice of restaurants to feast at. Buon appetito and Ramadan kareem! [/restrict]
