What led you to become a chef?
Ever since I was a kid, my dream was to become a chef or a musician. One day I decided that luck was directing me to be a chef!
How were you trained? Fully! I started in my native Venice, but spent time in France, England, Germany, the Caribbean, and now here in the States.
If you had it all to do over again, would you travel that much for training?
At the time, I loved to travel, but that has changed. Now I love to relax and stay in one place. For many years my business was to open new restaurants, and then move on, so it’s great to finally settle in.
You have helmed restaurants all over the world, what led you to Naples, FL?
The first time we came here was about nine years ago to visit with a family friend. I’ve always loved Florida, whereas my wife’s heart is in the big cities. But when she came to Naples, she fell in love. After I was invited to cook for the Naples Winter Wine Festival, we decided that someday we’d end up here. I wanted to move right away, but she was still attached to the big city. Then one day we woke up and she said, “I’m ready for Naples, let’s move!”
What local ingredients do you enjoy using in your cooking?
The nicest ingredient in all of Florida is the sun. The sun puts happiness into people, and when a chef has been cooking all day, the best thing to see is happy people coming into the restaurant. When I came down to cook at the Wine Festival, I remember thinking, “What wonderful vegetables, I can get them all year round”. I didn’t think -- I’d been living up north, where summertime is the best season for ingredients, and here produce is amazing in the wintertime. Therefore, many of the best vegetables come from up north during the summer here! Generally, I try to use as many local ingredients as I can find. That’s one of the reasons that our menu is always changing. I always pursue quality and what is most interesting.
What is the motivation behind your culinary creations?
People. Even when I was young, I loved to cook for others. When I was nine years old we’d go out to play soccer, and afterwards I would invite the team back to my house, borrow ingredients from my mom, and try to cook for them. It made me happy and proud to be able to cook for my friends, and it’s still one of my biggest motivators! For me it has become a business, of course, but I still have a strong passion for cooking. That’s why we created our Chef’s Table -- I can meet the guests and ask what they are in the mood for. Cooking is like painting -- if you try to copy a painting that you did before, it’ll look good, but not excellent. I believe the same thing is true for food. With the Chef’s Table, I feel the mood of the table, my mood for the day, and create accordingly. When you have a big restaurant, you have to train everyone how to copy. That can also be excellent, but smaller is my favorite size. And the Chef’s Table is my personal vision.
PULSE MAGAZINE ---------- 12
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