Michael Dias, who smiles constantly, was probably around eight years old when he first entered the hospitality business. He was the face of his parents’ restaurant in Corlim in the north of Goa, close to the famous Basilica of Bom Jesus, home to the remains of St. Francis Xavier.
Right on the tourist trail, Michael would be tasked with enticing passing tourists to come and eat, but along with his brother and his two sisters, they all grew up on the restaurant floor. “My dad would always put me right in the front of the restaurant, to bring in the people,” he says. “It’s where I picked everything up!”
He even made the sign for his parents’ place, he says, and decades later, he and his son made the sign for the takeaway the family now runs from their ex-council house in Blackley. It is ornately carved from a piece of wood, and it stands proudly in their neat front garden. It is called Liv’s Takeaway, a shortened version of his son and daughter’s names - Livren and Livrinda - and the food is just marvellous.
