About the Chef

Buongiorno,

What a better opportunity than this one to tell you about myself.
My name is Giacomo Ciabattini; I was born in Firenze (Florence) Italy in 1960.

I grew up in Florence and there is also where I went to culinary school for three years, from 1974 to 1977; I often celebrate my anniversary in the industry as my first day of school: October 7th 1974.

During those three years I worked in hotels and restaurants in the regions of Tuscany and Liguria as part of my externship until 1978 when, out of school I landed my first full time position in Florence. I had to work my way up the next four years to reach the position of “Chef” which I achieved in 1982 in a restaurant near the Piazza Duomo in Florence.

I enjoyed those two wonderful years there, I learned a lot especially dealing with fresh ingredients of high quality. Then came the opportunity to move to the United States.

In 1984 a friend that owned a restaurant in Laguna Beach, California, was looking for a chef for the summer and I jumped to the challenge, not knowing a word of English I landed at LAX on May 16th 1984. I have since worked my way to learn the language, the culture and the eating habits of people in the U.S.

I have worked mainly in California from 1984 to 1995, in very good restaurant such as Antonello’s near the South Coast Plaza Mall in the heart of Orange County to Il Fornaio, which now owns two dozen restaurants across the State.

In 1994 I opened my own restaurant with a friend in San Francisco, on Union Street between Octavia and Laguna. It was a great experience and a great adventure, however, due to the size of it neither myself no my partner were making any money, one of us had to go. It was me; it was easier for me to find something else while retaining my share in the restaurant.

It was at this time that I started my corporate experience, I worked from 1995 to 2000 at Romano’s Macaroni Grill as a Concept Executive Chef, developing food and menus, creating some very successful dishes and supporting new restaurant openings with hand picked development teams and opening plans. I enjoyed opening restaurants in many states, from California to Connecticut then London, Vancouver B.C. and Mexico City.

It was during an opening for a Macaroni Grill in California that I met Lea; she was a support for the opening team. We shared the same passion for food wine and we found out that we had many things in common beyond that. We started dating and we got married in 1998.
In 1999 our first daughter “Ollie” was born and in 2002 we had our second daughter “Dina”.

Meanwhile in 2000 a new adventure began, I left Macaroni Grill for Olive Garden, at the time Olive Garden was looking to re shape itself to be more authentic that it had ever been as well as opening a Culinary school in the Chianti region in the heart of Tuscany.
There I was Director of Culinary Developments and Instructor at the Culinary Institute in Tuscany. I taught more than fifty classes to about five hundred students and spent three months a year in Italy every year, it was great; after all I was only thirty minutes away from my hometown of Florence.

I enjoyed working for Olive Garden and interacted with many of their people in the field and I will always treasure that. During this time I participated in many projects, like doing Vignettes with Discover Channel where we won the “Telly” award for best promotion, I participated in “Dinner and a Movie” on TBS (don’t laugh, the movie was “Blast from the past), then came something that has been a dream for me for many years; I was named “Maestro di Cucina” by the Association of Professional Italian Chefs based in Milan, Italy. Maestro di cucina literally translate to Master of the kitchen, and it can be compared to being “Chef of the Year” in the U.S.

In 2004 all my travel and the fact that Lea and the girls were away from the rest of the family made us decide to move to Memphis Lea hometown and city where the family lives. After a month or two, armed with plans and budgets we started working on our dream: opening a restaurant.

We selected the location and the name, while for the menu most of it was already planned in the years before. Finally on May 23rd 2005 (which is also our anniversary day) we opened the doors to: “Café Toscana” with a very simple mission; to serve authentic contemporary Italian food.

The rest is the present, Café Toscana, a place to enjoy simple and fresh contemporary Italian food complimented by a great glass of wine in a casual environment where it feels like being part of the family.
I hope this introduction will answer some of the questions you may have and I hope to see you soon at Café Toscana.