Upside-down restaurant where guests cook for themselves
Bratislava has become home to a DIY restaurant that thrills guests with an out-of-the-box experience. The secret behind the first Makery DIY restaurant in Bratislava is the creative social experience. At the restaurant, everybody can joyfully create their chosen meal with their partner, family, friends or colleagues.
What is Makery?
Makery is an upside-down restaurant where guests cook for themselves and happily pay for it. The World’s first DIY restaurant franchise offers a creative community occasion and returns home with a long-lasting experience.
Kongres Magazine conducted an interview with the owners of the Makery World Bratislava, Nikola Rapčová and Betty Vaniherova to get an insight into the concept behind the unique restaurant.
Q1: How did you come up with the idea to open Makery World in Bratislava? Did you open the restaurant in the midst of the corona crisis?
Yes, you are right. We joined an informative tour around Hungary in 2020 and saw this project in Budapest. We fell in love with it. After we discovered a franchise opportunity, we got in contact with the owners. We discussed the details, and here it is – Makery Bratislava – opened in October 2021.
Q2: What was your previous experience with organising events? What is your background? Did you have any experience with cooking or running a restaurant before?
We both like cooking and baking, but we didn’t have any experience in running a restaurant. But, we own a travel agency called Tripito – which is doing incoming and outgoing as well as organising events and team building.
Q3: How big is the team behind this creative social experience?
In Bratislava, there are 4 of us, Betty and Nicole and Martin – the manager and Robert – the chef. But we have a lot of support from Hungary, where there is a team of 3 owners and 15 employees.
Q4: How did the market respond? Do you host many corporate groups? What is the maximum size of the group?
People are usually surprised by how much they like it in the end. They understand it is more about the fun and delicious food and not a cooking class. Most groups are corporate because this place is ideal for team building. Imagine you can suddenly see your colleagues doing things they usually do at home, and as a bonus, you share the experience. So, the boundaries may have disappeared, and everyone is enjoying the moment and food. The maximum size is 40 to 45 people. But for bigger groups, we can divide the program into two segments. There is always a solution.
Q5: Which dish is the most popular among your guests?
Creamy garlic soup in bread loaf and veal pepper-coated steak with tomato risotto.
Q6: What are your goals and plans for the future?
We hope to be able to develop our business and extend our team. Maybe even open one more restaurant. You never know.
Q7: In terms of sustainability – what do you do with waste food? Is it difficult to get the local ingredients?
We try to use 80-100 ingredients or less, so many dishes have the same ingredients, but they are used in different ways. For example, we have two risotto dishes; one is a pumpkin risotto with roasted duck breasts in an orange and berries sauce. The other one is the veal steak with tomato risotto. The base is the same, but the rest is different. Pumpkin puree is used in risotto, but we use it in other recipes such as vegan curry and so on and so forth. In order to minimise waste, we order ingredients almost daily. We try to have as many local ingredients as possible, at least the most essential, like meat. But other ingredients may be too expensive.
