With over 30 years of experience in hotels from Abu Dhabi to Napa Valley, Michelin-starred chef Massimo Falsini has encountered every kind of guest.
So it should come as no surprise that the Italian native — now the director of culinary operations at Rosewood Miramar Beach in Montecito, California — has seen his share of outrageous requests.
“I’ve done some crazy stuff,” Falsini told Business Insider. “I can make a gelato, I can make a croissant, but I can also make a Michelin-starred dish. I’ve done buffets for 3,000 people. I cooked for 2,000 people in the middle of the desert.”
During a sit-down interview with BI at Caruso’s, the one-star Michelin restaurant Falsini runs in billionaire Rick Caruso’s five-star hotel, the chef revealed some of the wildest requests he’s received from VIP guests throughout his long culinary career.
One of those requests Falsini received was when he was an executive chef at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in Hawaii. Falsini said the guest had been a regular at the hotel for years and “got really attached to my way of cooking.”
For one of her stays in the presidential suite, the guest made her reservation on the condition that Falsini would cook all of her meals.
“So every single day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the resort, I had to go to her suite on the balcony and prepare the meal for her,” he continued. “She had to look at me when I was physically cooking; she didn’t want anyone else to cook her food.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the name of the guest, or I’d be in trouble,” Falsini said with a laugh. “But I can tell you it was a big, big executive in the entertainment industry.”
One guest refused to sit in a chair that had been used before, the chef recalled
Falsini recalled another guest who refused to sit on any chair that had been previously used.
“His chair had to be new, and only he could sit on that chair,” Falsini said. “So we bought a chair for him, and then we stored the chair, and we wrapped it in plastic every year.”
“So every year when he came back to the hotel, we used to open that chair and show it to him. And whatever restaurant he was going to, we were bringing the same chair.”
In yet another example of an interesting request, Falsini had to create an SOP or standard operating procedure for one of his past hotel restaurants due to a guest’s very specific requests for their fruit salad.
“She wanted the fruit salad cut with every single piece in a 1-inch square,” Falsini said. “So I had to make a 1-inch cube for every single piece and mix it together in a certain way, and I had to make an SOP on how to make it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t eat it, and she’d make a big fuss, and complain.”
Falsini, who started washing dishes at a restaurant in Rome when he was 16, intentionally chose to work at very different places because he wanted to keep improving his culinary skills.
“I’ve done ultra-luxury hotels. I’ve done resorts. I’ve done theme parks,” he said. “The beauty of food is that every day is a new day, and every day is different. That’s why I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life.”
Now Falsini’s attention is on Caruso’s at Rosewood Miramar. The five-star resort in Montecito — a haven of celebrity mansions in California’s picturesque town of Santa Barbara — has attracted numerous stars, but Falsini said he isn’t fielding wild VIP requests nowadays.
“People, when they are celebrities, they probably travel a lot. They probably eat out a lot. They probably entertain a lot,” Falsini added. “So when they come here with families or significant others, they just want to have a good time. They just want to relax, and just have simple, really good food.”
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