Hayley Zwecker, Milano's back of house trainer describes her day
WE HAVE SEVEN Milano pizza restaurants in Dublin. My job is to make sure that, whichever one you go into, the quality of the experience is the same.
I've been working with the company for 13 years. I got started by chance. I was walking through Stephen's Green Shopping Centre, handing out CVs and trying to find a job one day.
I bumped into a friend who said to come with her, as she was meeting the restaurant manager of Milano on Dawson Street, the first one in the city.
An hour later I was working as a kitchen porter. It was a sign of the boom, and probably wouldn't happen now, but I needed money and got the job straight away.
A few months later I asked if they would train me as a chef, because it looked really interesting. It worked out great, because I love food. I come from a family that is really into cooking, so I've always had an interest. All I ever want as a gift is recipe books. I read them in bed.
Now I train the chefs coming in, so my role is much more about people management. I work Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm, hiring chefs and helping train them.
I live in Maynooth, in Co Kildare, so I have to commute to work, but other than that I'm lucky, in that I can walk between our city-centre branches and just hop on the Dart or Luas to get to Dundrum or Dún Laoghaire.
I try to make sure I visit each one at least once during the week, and in between do all the usual office tasks, like checking e-mails, talking to restaurant managers on the phone and drawing up training plans. I organise a variety of courses, from health and safety to dough management or kitchen costs.
We're lucky in that we've got great suppliers, and I spend a lot of time talking to them about what we need.
We have a development kitchen in the UK [through parent company PizzaExpress] and change the menus every six months, so I'll be sourcing new ingredients, too.
A lot of my work with chefs is to help train them up to senior pizzaiolo level, working on their exam preparation.
There is a perception that chefs are all moody, but it's not true: there's a fantastic atmosphere among ours. It might be because we have such a good mix - of gender, cultures and ages.
Italians will always tell you the secret to great pizza is an Italian chef, but actually I think it's the fact that less is more: choose the best-quality ingredients and then add no more than three toppings.
That said, I must get enough of pizza, as when I'm going out to dinner I like Indian food.
In conversation with Sandra O'Connell