Arianna Parisotto is a force of nature: contagious smile, overwhelming energy and a clear vision of what she wants to do: to offer "a zero-waste gourmet catering solution with a guaranteed food cost". After a three-year degree in philosophy at the University of Padua and a further degree in foreign trade in Treviso, she started working in an accountancy company.

Among her clients there were several hotels, and with many of them she found a common economic dynamic: a positive balance sheet for the hospitality business, but a constant loss for the restaurant business. She was so impressed, that she tried several times to investigate and discuss it with hotel managers toidentify the reason why.

Because of some personal dynamics, a few years later Arianna found herself managing a restaurant in the historical centre of Asolo, a beautiful middle age village in the province of Treviso, Henry's Bar. It was 2014. Refined cuisine and demanding customers, a chef extensively using vacuum cooking to organise the line, a punctual check of the food cost and careful control of the incidence of personnel costs, thanks to Arianna's economic background.

Everything seemed to be going well, the results were there, the customers loyal. And then... Covid arrived.. On Sunday the 8th of March 2020 the first restaurant closure order: "A date I will never forget" - she tells us. "Reorganising the work has been really easy, however, thanks to the way our business was structured.

On Monday 9th March we had already defined the take-away menu, sent via whatsapp to our regular customers, and on Wednesday 10th we started the first deliveries of vacuum-packed recipes. During the pandemic we had a lot of success with home delivery: customers who knew us, and could not come to the restaurant, immediately started to have single portions delivered to their homes".

The ease adoption of vacuum during lock down and the enthusiastic feedback from customers, coupled with Arianna's previous experience in management control in the hotel industry, triggered the click: why not offer the same solution not only to private consumers, but also to catering business, such as hotels? Together with Alex Costantini, chef of the Asolo restaurant and since then her right-hand man, they started working on the first shelf-life tests, fine-tuning the recipes to be able to guarantee a constant quality of the dishes, with a shelf-life of at least 30 days.

"We use a slow method of vacuum cooking raw materials in special food-grade plastic bags - Alex tells us - at temperatures between 60° and 74°. It is a method that, on the one hand, preserves the organoleptic value of the ingredients, concentrating aromas and flavours and respecting the natural tenderness and juiciness of the ingredients, and, on the other hand, reduces the risks of contamination and naturally increases the shelf life of the dishes by up to 45 days, without preservatives".

One of the biggest challanges has been modifying the restaurant's recipes to make them last in vacuum without additives: it is necessary to standardise not only the processes, but also the raw materials, which must be very fresh and always consistent. "The freshness of the ingredients - meat, fish, vegetables - is crucial. When you work in a traditional restaurant, the quality of the dish is not noticeably affected if certain ingredients are not so fresh, once they are processed and served immediately.

But if the dish has to last for a month, you cannot accept compromises, the quality of the ingredients is essential". In summer 2020, with the drop in the number of infections, the restaurants were reopened, but only with the possibility of outdoor service; and in the autumn restrictions were back: since October no dinner service and no counter service, until the new total close in December.

Listening to Arianna, I almost feel like I'm watching a film I have already seen, not a story we really lived through just a few years ago.But she is not discouraged by closures. On the contrary, the positive experience of take-away has made her determined to make vacuum-packed single-portions her new business: on the 24th of October 2020 she closed the restaurant in the centre of Asolo, on the 27th of December she started the new lab in Maser.

Eat Like a Star was born, a company with the mission of providing the best ready gourmet dishes, to be regenerated in minutes. High specialisation in low-temperature vacuum cooking; excellence of the recipes and the ingredients; stability of processes and constant results, strictly preservative-free: these are the three guidelines of this "anti-fragile" start-up, a completely new business, born out of the stress of the pandemic, with courage, determination, hard work... and a bit of madness, always necessary to succeed in breaking the patterns.

March 2021 sees the opening of the new lab in Maser, in May the adjacent bistro, which maintains the name of the historic restaurant in Asolo. "At the moment, we are the only restaurant in Italy with the CE mark and authorisation to package and distribute our dishes" - Arianna emphasises. "It has not been really easy, but we managed to prove to the health authorities the high food safety profile of our processes".

Loyal customers followed them and the restaurant quickly get going: at dinner like a traditional restaurant, at lunch with portions prepared in the lab, with the possibility for clients also to take home some products in vacuum. At the beginning, five recipes were developed: barbecue ribs; curried prawns and venus rice; Piedmontese Fassona hamburger; sea bass fillet; and beef cheek.

Today there are no less than 170 recipes! In addition to Arianna, two more girls work in the office - Enrica who looks after logistics and Cristina in the administration - and four people in the kitchen - two chefs Alex and Davide, helped by Giulia and Simonetta who take care of the packaging of vacuum-bags - plus two more people in the evening for the bistro service.

"In the first period having the bistro has been crucial to allow us to have the time and resources to build our brand reputationand also to refine the recipes: in the early days we did 20-30 tests for each recipe. Even now we continue with the research and development of new recipes, but over the years we have gained important experience and new methods to be able to standardise new dishes faster.

Now, finally, the vacuum business is growing significantly: we work mainly with hotels, small family restaurants and also with caterings, who can immediately perceive the advantage of having no waste and a reliable food cost. The challange is to get the restaurant managers to understand the benefits of our products: at first the cost of a single portion can be frightening, but when you analyse in depht the savings in terms of staff and waste, the opportunity becomes clear.

The first comment from a chef who runs a few hotels in Dubai and Kenya was very heartening: ‘no food waste!’. Unfortunately, the advantage is not immediately so obvious to everyone, but we believe in it very much and those who have chosen to work with us confirm that they are able to have an extremely precise control of the economic results, with great satisfactions".