Eating his way into Juno history
Four-year-old Romeo is youngest nominee ever
Can you believe that the youngest ever Juno Award nominee is four years old and possesses the palate equivalent of a Bobby Flay?
His name is Romeo Nicassio and he’s the happy star — and boy, do I mean happy — of “Romeo Eats,” a series of fun-filled culinary adventures on YouTube in which Romeo eats anything and everything.
He even likes broccoli … raw broccoli. He’d probably like Brussels sprouts, too, if he tried them. Did I mention he was four?
Each playfully zany show — pumped up with occasional animation, sound effects and a Looney Tunes sensibility — averages between five and 10 minutes. The cute-as-a-button cherub is joined on camera by his dad, Gianni, who offers a bit of background on the foods they’re about to devour and handles cutting and slicing duties.
With such signature declarations as “I wanna try it all, Papa” and “Buon Appetito,” Romeo eagerly tucks into whatever culinary delight is placed in front of him. And when all the foods have been tasted, Romeo declares, “This makes me want to dance!” — and father and son engage in impromptu choreography as a song about the food blazes over the speakers.
Where does the Juno Award fit into the equation?
Well, Romeo is the son of Gianni (Luminati) Nicassio and Sarah Blackwood, better known as the leaders of Walk Off the Earth, a Burlington indie pop band that broke into the mainstream when their video of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” went viral.
Since then, they’ve become something of a big deal, as the band’s upcoming headlining dates at Budweiser Stage (June 18) and New York’s Carnegie Hall (June 23) indicate.
They’re also behind the soundtrack of “Romeo Eats,” composing such numbers as “The Avocado Song” and “The Broccoli Song,” and adding enough vocal snippets from Romeo to release “Walk Off the Earth & Romeo Eats, Vol. 1” last September, just in time to qualify as a Juno entrant for Children’s Album of the Year.
Thus, Romeo is the youngest Juno nominee in the 51-year-history of the Canadian music awards. which will be presented at the Budweiser Stage on May 15. Mom says her future chef couldn’t be more excited.
“We’ve already started discussing our red carpet look,” Blackwood said. “We’d like to have something we can look back on and say, ‘Oh, that was a really good look, that was really fun.’ And we’re trying to get Romeo to give a speech if he wins, but that’s a whole other story.”
The transformation of Romeo from everyday kid to pint-sized gastronomic video star isn’t as big a leap as you might imagine: the idea sprang organically from the family dinner table.
“I’ve always been someone who experiments with new foods all the time,” Gianni Nicassio said. “Whenever I go to the supermarket, if I see something new, I’ll immediately Google it and then buy it and try it. But as soon as Romeo started eating real food, he was interested in whatever I was messing with.
“We thought that was hilarious because we’ve had two kids before him and, like most kids, they don’t gravitate to new things.
“So we would randomly film Romeo to put on Instagram and people were just blown away. They kept writing us to tell us that this kid is super special when it comes to food. So we joked around about making a show where he tried different foods when he got older.”
When pandemic lockdowns hit, Walk Off the Earth was forced off the road with time on their hands. Since they had their own production and recording studios, it was a no-brainer.
“He’s such a genuine little character,” Blackwood said. “Gianni and him would start doing these livestreams and we noticed that there were tons of people watching, even on Walk Off the Earth socials. We saw that Romeo had a true passion, not only for trying different foods and eating all kinds of different things, but for connecting with an audience.”
His parents aren’t kidding about his palate. Along with common foods such as mushrooms, avocados and tomatoes, he’s drawn to more unusual fare: mangosteen, pomelo, soursop, cacao, dragon fruit and even truffles, drinking the truffle juice straight out of the jar.
“He’s very well versed in food, herbs, spices, recipes, cultures and where things come from at this point, because we’ve been talking about it for so long,” Blackwood said.
“We’re very much about having family dinners every night. So, while we’re sitting and eating our dinner, there’s some point in the conversation where we talk about where the food came from and what culture it came from.”
Each episode averages 17,000 views from Romeo’s “Romie Homies,” but a couple of them — durian and jackfruit — have topped 135,000 and 151,000 views respectively.
“To see a three-year-old trying something that we’re told smells like garbage or sewage but tastes like bubble gum is really interesting for people,” Blackwood said.
Although they’ve filmed three “seasons” of “Romeo Eats,” there’s also “Romeo Dines,” in which the youngster, sometimes dressed in a suit and tie, visits a high-end restaurant for a multiple-course meal.
At Quatrefoil in Dundas, Ont., Romeo savoured a French cuisine menu that included house-smoked salmon tartare, crab cake (“I like the texture”), Quebec duck breast with beet and barley risotto, and kale.
At Burlington’s Rust Bistrobar, he enjoyed Korean cauliflower with mussels (“You really taste the saffron”), beef tartare topped with a raw egg yolk, and a tomahawk steak. The chef at Rayhoon Persian Eatery, also in Burlington, treated him to Iranian dishes like Kashkeh Bademjoon (eggplant), Zeytoon Parvardeh (olives) and Borani (yogurt) appetizers, and numerous kebabs (“Mmmmm!).
It’s apparent that Romeo is an ultra-polite young man, addressing the restaurant staff as “sir”; thanking them for bringing every course to his table and asking for help whenever he requires it.
“He’s a very sweet, sweet soul at heart,” Blackwood said.
Also in the pipeline is “Romeo Grows,” to be shot this summer, in which Romeo will tend his own garden “and he teaches people how to get the most out of this short time we have here in Canada to grow things,” Blackwood said.
But Nicassio says Romeo is still hankering for a return to “Romeo Eats” as all of the current episodes were shot when he was three.
“He’s always asking Sarah and I when he can come back to work with us on ‘Romeo Eats,’” Nicassio said. “He’s been bugging us because we haven’t shot in six months.”
Seems that at future family dinners, they already have the ham.
As soon as Romeo started eating real food, he was interested in whatever I was messing with.
GIANNI “LUMINATI” NICASSIO