KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — This year, one of KL’s much-loved restaurants La Risata celebrates its 20th anniversary. Started in 1996, the restaurant in Ampang was set up by childhood friends Lissa Yeoh and Yuen Sze together with two others who later exited the business. Three years later, they opened the second outpost in Medan Damansara.

Lissa Yeoh (left) and Yuen Sze To celebrates 20 years for La Risata

When they first opened, the Italian dining scene in KL was dominated by places like Scalini’s and Modesto’s that have since disappeared from our culinary landscape.

Over the years, both Lissa and Yuen kept true to their vision. As Lissa explains,“People like the formula for easy, simple, honest Italian food.” Many Italians often drop by for a taste of their homeland and give their stamp of approval.

In the early years, some diners had trouble adapting their local tastebuds to the Italian fare and would request for lime juice to make their soup more “asam” like. One customer even brought his own bottle of soy sauce!

The highly anticipated monthly specials include this Cannelloni Di Brasata Di Guancia Di Manzo with braised beef cheek

Enjoy the foie gras pâté with crispy polenta biscotti and the wine sauce with onions

Even though they have tried to tweak the menu to keep up with the times, their regulars won’t have it. One time, they tried to replace the bread they serve with their iconic tapenade dip (made with Kalamata olives and olive oil) with crispy pizza garlic bread. Complaints poured in so they had to switch back to the original.

As most of their menu items remain status quo, they introduce monthly specials instead to keep things interesting.

In the early days, Lissa and their first Italian chef Claudio Chucchiarelli crossed swords a few times when it came to the menu. Despite their differences, Claudio taught them an important lesson: Italian food is really about the ingredients and simplicity. Even though Claudio was adamant about keeping to his traditional ways, he advocated the use of cili padi in his dishes since it tasted the closest to what he wanted as ingredients like chilli flakes with the pepperonico would corrupt the taste of the dish.

A creation of their first Italian chef, Claudio Chucchiarelli, this ravioli de pesce is a staple in their menu for 20 years (left). Risotto is now widely accepted like this wild mushroom risotto topped with grilled vegetables (right)

Till today, that is still used in La Risata’s cooking. Not everything that the Italian chef introduced though was a success and Lissa recalls hilarious moments for their diners when he tried to cook them a balitong dish or even slip in a few fresh cockles in their seafood soup.

The childhood friends who met when they were 12 and 13 respectively at the Royal Selangor Golf Club have an enviable working relationship filled with trust. Lissa adds, “What Yuen and I have is a lot of trust and it’s not always about figures.” Despite being new to the restaurant business when they first started, the duo took things in their stride with lots of passion. One painful experience was their pizza oven; they had to replace it four times before they got it working fine.

The Sicilian Bombe that is meringue covered sponge filled with lemon cream is flambéed with brandy at the table for that "wow” factor (left). One of their popular desserts is the zuccoto or a liquer dome cake filled with cream and chopped hazelnuts and almonds (right)

On hindsight, the duo believes that you need a good mix of passion and business sense for any restaurant to work. “Sometimes when you do things blindly for passion, you don’t make money, so you also need to know how to run a business,” said Lissa. She believes that their partnership yielded such success because Yuen, who is an accountant by profession, knew what she was doing with the business. Yuen also adds, “I think business success is all about good relationships, not only between business partners but the staff and customers too.”

Instinct and patience also play an important part in their business practices. For instance, it was their instinct that led them to open Bijan which is now a success as a Malay restaurant. “What I learned about business is at the end of the day, it’s your instincts. If you feel it’s the right thing to do, you just do it,” adds Lissa. She also notices that most restaurants tend to panic after one month of poor earnings. This leads them down a slippery slope, as they start introducing items to boost sales and they slowly move away from their original concept.

The pizza dough at La Risata remains the same from day one except the toppings change like this monthly special topped with free range eggs, air dried beef and a mix of rocket and herb vinagrette

This year, the restaurant will be kicking off a year-long celebration from January 20. Diners can expect special promotions every twentieth of the month. Plans are also underway to contribute some of their proceeds to charity homes and a possible launch of an outreach programme to orphanages to offer them jobs with the restaurants. Kicking off their celebrations, the restaurant was thrilled that they bagged Time Out KL’s Best Italian Restaurant award late last year... icing on the cake for their 20 years in business.

La Risata Bar Pizzeria Ristorante, 16 Persiaran Ampang, KL and 128, Jalan Kasah, Medan Damansara, KL.

For further details http://www.la-risata.com and https://www.facebook.com/larisatarestaurant