A New Life Sean and Marco Magnetti tell Michelle McDonagh why they left their careers and the US to come home and run the family restaurant.
When brothers Sean and Marco Magnetti gave up their totally different respective careers to take over the family Italian restaurant business, there was probably nobody more surprised than their father, Sergio.
If Irish social life revolves around the pub, there's no doubt that the social centre of Italian life is the dinner table - in fact, the standard of home cooking is so high in Italy that for a restaurant to survive there, it has to be outstanding.
The strong Italian tradition for cooking has been kept alive and well in Galway over the past 12 years by the Magnetti family and now the recipes have been passed along to the next generation.
Taking the risk of swapping one career for something totally different is nothing new in this family for Italian-born Sergio left mechanical engineering while his wife, Mary from Tuam, was a nurse before they opened their first restaurant in Galway city.
When Sean returned from the US where he had been working in the pharmaceutical industry at about the same time that Marco gave up a career in sound engineering to return from San Francisco, they decided to take over the Trattoria Restaurant on Quay Street when their parents retired.
Although they had made their own fresh pasta at home while growing up, having embarked on different career paths Sean (32) and Marco (27) never imagined that they would one day be running their own manufacturing business.
However, since taking over Trattoria (named after a style of Italian cooking) in September 2002, the Magnetti sons have also established their own manufacturing company in Clarenbridge producing fresh pasta, sauces and Italian products for selected delicatessens around the county.
The Magnetti Pasta range is now available in outlets in Galway, Dublin, Limerick, Mayo, and Ennis and they have plans to expand further around the State.
"The idea is that people can bring home the fresh pasta, cook it, add the sauce and have the real thing in four minutes, an authentic Italian pasta meal in their own home as opposed to going out to a restaurant," says Sean.
Sean and Marco are quick to dispel the perception that Italian cooking is all about pasta and pizza, pointing out that it incorporates a wide range of traditional regional specialities including meat, fish and particularly veal dishes.
After graduating from NUI Galway with a degree in marine biology and a masters in biotechnology, Sean worked for an Irish multinational in Dublin before transferring to the US. His work there involved taking a drug from formulation stage through clinical trials to FDA approval for sale on the market.
While he enjoyed certain aspects of the job, particularly the opportunity it afforded him to travel around the US and Europe, Sean knew the nine-to-five life was not for him and he always dreamed of opening his own business back home.
"The restaurant business was always in the back of my mind because we had grown up with it. Dad never pushed us towards it, in fact it came as a bit of a surprise to him when myself and Marco decided to take it over because we had our own careers and were doing our own thing."
Sixteen months on and Sean certainly has no regrets about his decision despite the fact that he is working twice as hard and the hours can be anti-social at times. He immensely enjoys working for himself and watching the business grow.
Having always been interested in DJing, Marco studied sound engineering in London before going to work in the recording industry in Oakland, San Francisco.
There he was involved in recording hip hop, DJing and spin-off work such as advertising post-production on radio and CD Rom.
He had never planned on staying in the US long term, but when Marco returned to Ireland two years ago, he found the opportunities in the recording industry here were very limited so he jumped at the chance to take over the family business with his brother.
Marco says: "When you work for yourself, you are not doing one particular job, you are multi-tasking all day every day. I have learnt so much in the last year about the restaurant and manufacturing businesses, they are two totally different businesses.
"The restaurant business was in the family so we knew what we were getting into, but the pasta manufacturing was a whole new area that we had to figure out from scratch."
Although Marco enjoys being his own boss, he still keeps his hand in the DJing business touring the Irish club scene with Grooveyard every now and then - however music now takes second place to his new career as a restaurateur and businessman.