My name is Giorgio; I was born in Florence, Tuscany and lived between Florence and the Emilian mountains, home of my maternal grandparents.
Spending weekends and summers with my maternal grandparents allowed me to develop a passion for growing vegetables, making wine with my grandfather, and cooking and baking with my grandmother, a former pastry chef. My grandparents instilled in me a love for processing the produce from their farm and other local farmers, teaching me to value the hard work of local farmers and appreciate their products.
I always kept cooking and farming as my passion while pursuing my chemistry and microbiology studies.
When I was 17, I decided to start work, parallel to my studies, as a Barista in a café and pastry shop in Florence and talking about and sharing my passion; eventually, I found myself helping in producing pastries, ice cream and chocolate in the cafe.
That was the beginning of a career that would lead me to study as a Sous Chef, working in various starred restaurants, catering, and being a partner in the opening of a starred Michelin restaurant in Milan, collaborating with chefs of different nationalities and in 2014 culminating in my starting my own Italian catering, consulting, and cooking courses company, which in 2022 I started again in the Netherlands.
From a young age, I was fascinated by cooking and agriculture, spending the summer with my maternal grandparents in their house and working the small farm owned by my grandfather.
Growing up, I became increasingly fascinated with food and substance composition, how matter is composed, and how it interacts with us and the world. Perhaps this was dictated by the need to prepare most of my food by myself due to suffering from multiple food allergies at that time and being surrounded by a young society with few choices and an understanding of food allergies.
In a so fast-changing society, where the first computer I learned to use was operating on DOS, and then in secondary school, where I started to model the 3D structure of chemical molecular with Windows, there was always this niggling feeling I bore of insufficient growth opportunities for chefs and smallholding
farmers and that working in a restaurant or the food industry was something to do to supplement the cost of living while studying.
So, to be financially independent and to proceed with my studies in Chemistry, I asked permission from my parents to work as a Barista in a pastry bar near home, and in the summer of my 17th birthday, I took my first job in the food industry.
That summer work, taken just as something to help me with living costs, changed my life route; Orlando and Gianna, my best friend's parents, who owned a Bar in Porta Romana in Florence, taught me the basics of being a Barista and allowed me to have my first work contract. Then there were Mara and Paolo, owners of the pastry and bakery bar, “Bar Beconcini”. Paolo was an old-school pastry chef making everything from scratch, and he taught me the basics of making commercial pastries, ice cream and chocolate. At the same time, Mara, an ex-financial accounting manager for an international Italian company, introduced me to food costs, company costs, and business operations.
With this in mind, in 2014, I established my first company, offering food and beverage consulting, cooking classes and catering in the Tuscany area of Italy. During this time, I was contacted shortly after by Yoji, who had retired from Osteria La Francescana as Senior Sous Chef and was looking to start as an entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry.
We stumbled upon the brilliant idea of providing high-end catering services for events and even established pop-up restaurants in different cities of North Italy. We successfully did this until October 2014, when we jointly opened his restaurant named “Tokuyoshi” in Milan, for which we proudly achieved one Star Michelin in just six short months.
After this achievement, I was even more motivated to improve my knowledge to enhance my guests’ culinary experience. So, I decided to take the Sommelier course to understand better the perfect pairing of wines and cocktails with food to offer my guests a complete and complementary gastronomic experience through my knowledge.
The decision to keep offering my chef training courses was fortuitous, as I met my future wife, from Malaysia, who had come to me during her holiday in Florence to learn Italian cuisine!
The romance was swift, and after tying the knot with her, we moved to the Middle East, where I was invited to work and share my knowledge in fine dining restaurants in Dubai while continuing to teach various cuisines, including Arabic and Italian cuisine there. My culinary adventures also took me travelling around Asia, where I eventually landed in Pakistan to collaborate on the opening of a fine dining restaurant in Lahore.
Marriage indeed was also opportune, as my mother-in-law was a known caterer in Indian and Sri Lankan style dishes in Malaysia, and she graciously imparted her knowledge to me. My wife also guided me on various Southeast Asian cuisines, and I quickly picked up the preparation and cooking styles of Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, and Chinese dishes, among others. All these complemented my ready knowledge of Japanese and Eastern cuisines, and my wife guided me in learning various cooking styles.
In 2019, my family and I had the opportunity to return to Europe, and we settled down in the Netherlands, where I reignited my interest as a Sommelier while evaluating which path I should take next in my culinary journey.
After much consideration, I decided to return to the traditional cuisines taught to me by my grandparents and cultivated in Italy and make them available to everyone.
Thus was born Chef Story, which aims to capitalise and consolidate all the innovations and cultures learnt in my life’s culinary journey, integrate them into classic Italian preparations, and lovingly share them with all who wish to learn from what I know.
As to the future? I am still curious and full of awe at what can be achieved in the culinary world, so I will challenge myself to continuously learn and improve and share my knowledge with one and all.
This is my story; this is Chef Story!
Grazie! Thank you! Merci! Arigato! Xiexie! Terima kasih! Nandri! Danke! Bedankt! Tack! Shukriya! Shkran Lak!
So, what was then a passion, as I always said, “I will cook only for friends and family, and I will not make cooking a chore or feel like a job, " became my life journey.
At that point, I pondered what I should do next, then. At that point in time, there wasn’t an actual gastronomic study in Italy. The entrants to the food and beverage industry learnt their skills on the job, and the fine dining establishments were starting to explore this new “molecular gastronomy” concept, which I found to be very intriguing, where one had to find the essential blend of food chemistry to achieve a balanced palate in the mouth. I very much wanted to pursue skills in this new area of blending food chemistry. However, at that time, I did not possess the requisite culinary qualifications nor the proper contacts in the restaurant business to allow me the opportunity to explore this facet of nouveau cuisine as part of my studies. As luck would have it, a family friend who happened to be the owner of a restaurant in the city Manarola (Cinque Terre, Liguria) in Italy introduced to me a first-of-its-kind school that could allow me to pursue a Sous Chef qualification, just near to my maternal grandparents’ home.
As a final stage of my studies, to achieve the qualification of Sous Chef, I was sent to the Restaurant Osteria la Francesca in Modena, Italy, a three-Michelin-starred and ranked one of the best restaurants in the world. At that time, the Senior Sous Chef and the Sous Chef were two Japanese gentlemen, Yoji and Taka. When they discovered my interest and knowledge in food chemistry, they offered me the opportunity to collaborate with them on the creation of delectable new dishes.
The two Japanese chefs were collaborating with Master Chef Massimo Bottura, introducing traditional Japanese cooking and techniques to elevate the dishes, and in their free time teaching me, as their humble apprentice, classic Japanese cuisine. I studied under the two Japanese chefs throughout my time at Restaurant Osteria la Francesca.
I then was presented with the opportunity to deepen my knowledge of French cuisine in London at the “Le Gavroche” of Michele Rue, following which I was employed at “Roux at the Landau” in The Langham Hotel, London.
During my sojourn at “Le Gavroche”, I got the opportunity to collaborate on my first restaurant opening around Covent Garden, London, where I started to be passionate about sharing my knowledge with other chefs and, indeed, anyone who had an interest in various cuisines.
After some time in London, I received an offer to work in Florence as a chef instructor for amateur chefs and students aspiring to be chefs. I quickly grabbed this opportunity as I recognised that this would pave the way for me to establish my own company, and indeed, after nine years of working in the food industry for others, the prospect of opening my own company was an exciting challenge and opportunity.
