ITALY
Interior Design Let’s start with major differences
This McDonald’s was located in Milan Italy’s train station Centrale
Call it CoVid or the rise of machines: all orders only through kiosks.
The Italian Specialties
Three Chicken specialties, really all fried chicken patties with extra tomatoes, bacon and lettuce.
Ice cream with ‘smarties’ aka European M&M’s, Baci Hazelnut chocolate? I don’t know what Bounty is. Oreos and Snickers are life. Notice 100% Italian Milk!
McCafe’s - nice to haves in the USA - clear cut Italian Espresso machines for Italy. They are absolute no joke, the equivalent to Illy’s and Starbucks. So McDonalds Italy is both a McCafe and Starbucks. Great branding.
Okay back to the food
Cheese fries, large Coke Zero (no Diet Coke) and a McChicken variation. It all tastes so.. plain fast food! Haha what can you do. There nothing profound or wise about it. It’s fast and consistent quality for cheap.
Summing Up…
There are clear regional differences for every McD’s. Coming from the restaurant industry - it’s a huge feat to have local spins on takes. So Kudos to McD’s Italy for their McCafe’s! At the end of the day - it’s no substitute for real hand made food. This stuff was clearly frozen 7/11 quality fried foods, the beef patties were dry (even Wendy’s in the state rocks with their fresh never frozen beef!)
Some random takeaways: Mayo is = to ranch here as a dipping sauce (aoli anyone?). The cheese fries were a more nuanced cheese rather than Nacho and a cheddar cheese slice. Sauces were more emulsified and sticky, and richer. Probably to make up for dryness or blandness?
Interesting to see where the quality foods call in U.S. leads the international menus.
Oh and no drive thrus. I leave with a home cooked feast my grandparents in law made which brings back fond memories :)
Speaking of China
China McDonalds’s
The main differences at China McDonalds are the European themes to the food. Oh and notice how they have the Tasty appetizer buckets (not a thing in the states).
China KFC
They’ll tell you KFC is really popular in China. I get it fried chicken is universal
