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For the last 10 years or so, fast food restaurants are not what they used to be. If you remember how these gastronomic spaces used to be, dirty fryers, greasy burgers, lack of vegetarian options -and the vegan option was a Northern European fantasy-, or a sad, dull and cold decoration, which did not invite you to enjoy a relaxed meal or to take several pictures to show where you have been and what you have ordered on your Instagram or TikTok profile come to mind.
In 2022, the whole situation changed completely and now we are thinking, on Monday mornings, what our next discovery will be and what explosion of flavours we are going to have at the weekend or during the week. It is true, and no one can deny, that fast food restaurants have changed and are proving that it is possible to eat a pizza that is healthy and not loaded with foods that are not good for a balanced and healthy diet. However, as all the experts say, it is not advisable to abuse this type of food. Jorge Ibarra, a member of the Association of Dietitians and Nutritionists of Madrid (Addinma) says that the fast food places we all think of when we mention these words should be avoided as far as possible.
However,” continues Ibarra, “more and more people are becoming health and nutrition conscious and that is why establishments are springing up that offer healthier products adapted to today’s society in which haste takes precedence over many things”.
Following on from the previous confirmation, in Spain, the chains or franchises have got their act together and have opted for fast, healthy and very attractive food on Social Media. The latter is very important in order to understand the image wash that all the establishments have undergone.
Mainly because a video is worth more than thousands of images or advertising campaigns. If there is a story where you can see that the restaurant has everything we need to be viral on social networks and, in addition, has a wide and varied menu, they will achieve success in less than a week.
“More than from the kitchens, I think the transformation started on social media, where a lot of big name chefs started to replace minimalist dishes and offer us dishes that were clearly street-inspired. In the end, fast food goes hand in hand with street food and I think that thanks to this change, fast food is no longer frowned upon”, explains Emanuele Tripodi, Executive Chef Napoli Gang Spain, in relation to how he understands this metamorphosis, applying it where he works.
As the Grosso Napoletano team argues, and following Napoli Gang’s explanation, “our strategy is always focused on the customer, and even if the restaurants were nice and the pizzas were great, if the sensation was heavy and there was no experience beyond having a tasty pizza, the natural behaviour of demand would decrease, and over time the opposite has happened.
The two factors in achieving this change – and making it effective – have been that the pizzas are handmade, with dough containing flour, made using the indirect method and, on the other hand, that the atmosphere is very carefully designed and invites you to sit down, as in the Neapolitan traditions in famiglia, and enjoy an experience around the table. This philosophy does not exist in the fast food concept, which again excludes us from this denomination”.
Before we enter the world of hamburgers, we ask both Napoli Gang and Grosso Napoletano if it is possible to eat a healthy pizza, to which they both answer yes: “The problem is the misunderstanding of what a pizza is, as people think of it as a greasy and heavy food. Pizza can be a very light and varied dish, it all depends on how long the pizza dough rests, the raw materials used and the combination of ingredients you put on the pizza,” says Emanuele Tripodi.
“Healthy does not mean that it has no calories. For us, healthy means using as fresh a product as possible. Our ingredients are imported twice a week from Italy and are incorporated almost immediately into the recipes, thus eliminating artificial preservatives,” details the Groso Napoletano team, adding that respecting tradition in all aspects and having vegan and gluten-free options for everyone is key to staying on the right track.
Pizzerias are no longer those places where grease was a staple on the counters or on the tables, and that has been completely eliminated or there are very few places left. Even the iconic pizzeria in Madrid, Vesuvio, takes care of its aesthetics and that allows them not to lose their long queues outside the premises and for those people to continue eating delicious pizzas that no one else manages to make.
Its décor is reminiscent of any street in the interior of Rome. For this reason, among many others, the term fast food never existed on its walls or in its ambience. And what about Antonia Pizza? That, as an Italian would say, the kind of pizzas that are sold are common in New York and are not on an Italian menu.
Inspiration changes a lot the ambience and the goal the place wants to achieve. Antonia Pizza is an exact copy of what the Big Apple pizza places that sell a slice of pizza for a dollar are like, and that is why it is so successful. Of course, as the Napoli Gang chef said at the beginning, “social media is key” and Antonia Pizza is putting a lot of emphasis on that communication.
Now it’s time to take a stab at one of the star dishes on a fast food menu: burgers. When asked if it is possible to eat a healthy burger, Aleix Puig, founder of Vicio, gives a very clear and concise answer: “We try to buy the best raw material. He asked me to imagine an assembled burger and indicated through that visualisation that its construction is based on a series of prejudices over many years, “but if I put fresh lettuce leaves of the day, a ripe tomato, a bun with homemade butter and grilled meat with salt and pepper, do you think that’s not healthy?
Like Vicio, Frankie Burgers has the same philosophy. Jesús Rivero, one of the restaurant’s founders, is clear that customers want healthy options and in the kitchen you have to be aware of this new demand. “For a hamburger to be considered quality, you have to choose each ingredient well and its artisanal processes, in other words, there has to be respect for the raw material“. Both Aleix Puig and Jesús Rivero reach the same conclusion with their answers: the main essence of making a healthy hamburger is the food.
It is clear that the products are key to making a balanced meal, but just as in a pizzeria, the decoration of the space is also fundamental to eliminate the traces of fast food. It is important to design an environment and atmosphere in line with the experience and not lose focus on the quality of the ingredients,” describes Jésus Rivero. We have to take into account the new consumption habits of our customers and respond to them by applying the necessary improvements in all processes”.
Aleix Puig clarifies that everything has a middle ground. “A hamburger is part of a complete diet. We are not going to eat this dish every day, just as we don’t eat a stew every Monday, or rather, every day of the week. In other words, abuse is the control of everything.
The Vicio team are masters at building visual spaces that have never been seen before. They started with a home delivery service, then a restaurant in Barcelona and finally, they arrived in Madrid with a 500 m2 venue in the heart of the capital. “The cultural part that we generate when it comes to selling the product we don’t want it to simply be about going to eat something. We want it to be a journey from the moment they find us on networks, until that person ends up leaving the premises with a bag of Vicio”, Aleix describes.
In all cases of restaurants that have products such as pizzas or burgers, a good communication team is very important so that the healthy message is real, as are the high quality raw materials they use.
In the case of Napoli Gang, we asked the Nota Bene agency about how to effectively communicate a pizzeria without falling into the clichés of fast food. They told us that they gave it a more street touch typical of American gangs, creating a brand of Italian food that is casual and fun. “Always focused on the quality of our products, the know-how of our chefs, and our customers. Social media are the main channels of communication. Without content creators, it would be much more complicated to spread the message and create a community, a gang“.
Along the same lines, the agency The Life Crew describes that the challenge was to communicate such an iconic product as pizza, “but Grosso Napoletano has been very clear about its values since its birth. It has been a brand that has been able to maintain them and be very faithful to the key concepts. Of course, we had to draw the lines and democratise pizza, in this case, Neapolitan pizza”.
If it is difficult to convey the message of a pizzeria, it is even more difficult to show how a burger can be healthy. “We always emphasise the genuine simplicity of the burgers, based on traditional hamburgers, with a short but infallible menu. On the other hand, the quality and its relationship with the Spanish market: 100% purebred beef (from selected suppliers such as Discarlux) hand-chopped every day in the restaurant with home-made potatoes from Galicia and a tender and soft brioche bun“, argues the Action and Communication team and they highlight that the boom of the gourmet burger in 2012 helped. “This allowed the public to get to know what’s beyond the greasy food.
The latest case of the most viral communication about a hamburger has come from Vicio. Its latest campaign, starring Jessica Goicoechea, influencer and fashion entrepreneur, revolutionised with the aim of putting more focus on its products. “We wanted to make a lot of noise and for people to get to know us, for them to remember us”, explains Aleix, explaining the reason for this advertising.
The end of healthy eating is to combine a variety of foods where all the nutrients are incorporated. All the chefs who have previously responded to the question of whether the fast food they cook can be healthy are of the opinion that the key is in the nature of their ingredients and how they communicate this to their future customers, playing with their dining spaces and experiences. It is no longer about going there, having a quick slice of pizza and leaving.
You want the customer to experience the explosion of ingredients and enjoy this type of food from the very first bite. Bearing in mind that these culinary options are not recommended every day of the week, we should have no regrets when, sporadically, we order a pizza diavola.
