I like to create hip, contemporary, cuisine focusing on playful, elegant, and expressively artistic dishes. I promote a kitchen that rewards exploration, experimentation, and fresh interpretations of classic Americana with a healthy dollop of flare. Food is fun, food is vital, food is life.

I am a third generation chef who draws great inspiration from deep culinary roots. Growing up was a melting pot of Classic French, Sicilian, Cuban, and Appalachian cuisines. My formative years were on my grandfather’s farm, my father’s restaurant, as well as the dinner table where my mother and step father would school me in the food traditions of Sicily and Cuba. From a young age I learned not just how to cook, but how life and cooking intertwined in such a primal and vibrant way: a perfect expression.

Over the course of 19 years, I have been lucky enough to work in some great kitchens with great cooks, each which has taught me in a unique and irreplaceable way.  I have spent time in luxury resorts, hotels, and free standing restaurants. Every step I have taken has been an additional building block in my own cuisine, one that is challenging but approachable – whimsical but serious- food that, I hope, leaves you with a smile on your face.

As homage for all those before me, and those many more to come after, a quote:

“We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.”  -John Salisbury