Executive Chef Maurizio Mazzon travels to Italy two or three times a year to source recipes and ingredients for the regionally authentic menus.

“I am adamant about this,” says Senior Vice President of Marketing Michael Mindel. “I have seen over and over how companies get tired of their own ad campaigns and do not appreciate how much the intended audience likes it or is exposed to it.”

Mindel was sure not to make that mistake at Il Fornaio, the Corte Madera, Calif.-based chain of 21 Italian restaurants that pride themselves on authenticity. Il Fornaio's Festa Regionale promotion highlights one of Italy's 20 regions for two weeks every month. It rotates in some of the better-known regions like Tuscany more often, with lesser-known areas such as Abruzzo less often. The promotion includes a custom-designed menu insert, with a map and history of the region, and a selection of regional dishes.

Loyal Il Fornaio customers get their "Passaporto" stamped each time they eat off one of the chain's regional menus. When their Passaportos are full, they are entered to win a trip to Italy.

“Our guests are interested in travel and recognize dishes, and we want to make something special for them,” says Executive Chef and Vice President Maurizio Mazzon.

The Festa Regionale promotion was born out of good-natured disagreements between the chain's chefs about which chef's regional recipe for this dish or that dish was better.

“We would have the these semiannual chef's meetings where we would try to come up with core menus. Our goal is to provide the most authentic food,” Mindel says. “We have native Italians working in our company. Why didn't we incorporate their vast experience?”

Since Il Fornaio began the program, tourism offices for some of the regions of Italy, such as Umbria, have courted Mazzon, wanting to assist with the restaurant's efforts. “It never occurred to us that people in Italy were noticing us,” Mindel says.

Mazzon has been able to use the interest from abroad to find new chefs, ingredients and menus, so that even if a guest came to the Tuscany promotion last year, he won't be bored.

But pulling together a regional menu every month isn't easy. Each menu has approximately 14 items. While some are repeats from the core menu and some from previous Festa Regionale periods, most are new. “I had no idea how complicated it would be when we started,” Mazzon says.

In addition, Mazzon concedes that importing cheese that is only made for the Vatican or a type of olive oil not found in the United States can be expensive. And he can't always increase menu prices to incorporate the specialty ingredient costs.

“We may have to absorb some of those costs sometimes,” Mazzon says. “That's the price you have to pay to be authentic.”

While introducing a labor-intensive menu with hard-to-find ingredients is hard on the kitchen staff, Mindel says offering a new menu is a “strategic advantage.”

Il Fornaio's regional menus include many ingrediants not commonly found in the United States.

When Il Fornaio began the Festa Regionale promotion, regular customers averaged nine annual trips to the restaurant for dinner; the chain's goal was 12 trips.

The last time Il Fornaio measured guest frequency it was 12.7 trips annually, surpassing that original 12-times-per-year goal, and Mindel expects the actual number is even higher.

According to Mindel, having an ongoing marketing campaign that targets current customers rather than bringing new guests to the concept makes the most economic sense.

“Generally we do not try to attract new guests. It is an expensive challenge to cut through the clutter,” Mindel says. “We do not need to spend a lot of money to build strong relationships.”