Head chef of Hong Kong’s oldest Italian restaurant wants to add pizzazz to classic menu

With straw-covered wine bottles hanging from the ceiling, a century-old cash register sitting in a corner, and soft Italian music playing in the background, La Taverna is a reminder of home for its executive chef Marco Bajma.

“This is what I’ve found to be the most traditional Italian atmosphere in Hong Kong,” Bajma said of Hong Kong’s oldest Italian restaurant, whose rustic interior decoration includes wooden wheels and steel pans on its walls.

“Walking into La Taverna for the first time was like stepping back home. Even from the outside, with the stucco and the painted sign, it looks very much like a corner restaurant in any old Italian town.”

The inspiration for the Tsim Sha Tsui restaurant comes from “tavernas” – cool, dry cellar-like areas found in traditional Italian homes where bottles of wine and food are stored, and a place where people have their meals.

Bajma, who started making pizzas at his father’s restaurant in Piedmont in northwest Italy at the age of 14, joined the La Taverna team in April this year, after working at a nearby Italian eatery.

In the past five months, the head chef, who is 43 this year, has been working on revamping the menu of Hong Kong’s first Italian restaurant, whose longevity is rare in a city where restaurants often come and go.

“I took the challenge because the hospitality industry in Hong Kong moves extremely fast, and places open and close in a fairly short time,” Bajma said.