Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Top chef calls it quits
Giovanni Rocchio leaving Valentino Cucina, One Door East
Chef Giovanni Rocchio says he hit the wall about a month ago, near the end of a busy weekend service that left him “destroyed.” His mind was fried, his body ached and he turned to longtime kitchen lieutenant Dave Martell and said he didn’t know how much longer he could continue.
Rocchio, 53, has been working in restaurants since he was 7, when he’d sweep the floors at his father’s Italian restaurant in Lauderhill. For the last 13 years, he’s been obsessively devoted to Valentino Cucina Italiana, the Fort Lauderdale restaurant that is regarded as among the region’s best. Unlike chefs who become globe-trotting figureheads or create mini-empires, Rocchio was an old-school throwback, a cook who’d make fresh pasta every morning and work the line every night.
On Tuesday, Rocchio stunned his staff when he announced he’d be leaving Valentino and One Door East, the two restaurants he created in a former Federal Highway tire
“When I started this 13 years ago, I wanted to elevate and change the dining landscape in Fort Lauderdale and I think we did everything we set out to do.”
Valentino Cucina Italiana chef and owner Giovanni Rocchio
shop just south of the New River tunnel. Rocchio says he has sold his stake in the restaurants to his partners and that his final shift in the kitchen would be Wednesday.
“I cried a couple of times,” Rocchio said during dinner service Tuesday. “I’ve been working with a lot of these people for 13 years … But it’s the right decision for me. It had gotten to the point where I didn’t have time to get a haircut or get an oil change.”
Rocchio opened Valentino Cucina in 2006 in a cramped strip-mall space on South Federal Highway. In 2012, with the backing of some well-heeled regulars from the Rio Vista neighborhood (including auto dealer Mike Maroone), the restaurant moved to sophisticated new digs at 620 S. Federal Highway, a 100-seat gastronomic temple with an open kitchen where Rocchio could survey the entire dining room. In 2016 Rocchio and longtime life and business partner Elke Quintana opened One Door East, a global tapas restaurant with an industrial vibe, in a back space where he once baked bread.
Both restaurants will continue under managing partner Robert DiStefano, a
retired businessman from Connecticut, and executive chef Joel Ehrlich, whom Rocchio hired earlier this year to run One Door East. Ehrlich and Martell will oversee the Valentino kitchen, and Rocchio says he’ll be available to offer guidance and help with recipes and pasta-making during the transition. Quintana also has sold her stake in the restaurants.
“To me it’s mission accomplished,” Rocchio said in a telephone interview Wednesday, as he was bombarded with texts from longtime customers who were happy for him and also dismayed. Rocchio says he started thinking about his future after earning a top four-star Sun Sentinel review earlier this year. “When I started this 13 years ago, I wanted to elevate and change the dining landscape in Fort Lauderdale and I think we did everything we set out to do.”
“I know that some regular customers are going to be upset,” says Ehrlich, a Fort Lauderdale native
who went to high school in Boca Raton and has spent the last 20 years working at top restaurants in San Francisco and Napa Valley. “But we’re going to respect the traditions that Giovanni started while moving forward.”
Ehrlich worked for acclaimed South Florida chef Nick Morfogen after graduating from Johnson & Wales University’s culinary school and then moved to California.
He has worked at winecountry restaurants Tra Vigne, Bottega and Michelinstarred Bistro Jeanty, and also at San Francisco restaurants Coqueta, Bellota and Absinthe Brasserie.
Rocchio says he and Quintana plan to travel and that he also wants to spend more time with his aging parents, who live in Plantation. He says he wants to explore other culinary possibilities, including product development, and that he grew tired of the grueling kitchen grind, where 16-hour days are common. “I’ve neglected too many things in my life for too long — my girlfriend, my parents, my relationship with God,” Rocchio says.
“I’ll be missed for a little bit, but then everyone will move on,” Rocchio said Wednesday. “It’s time for the rest of the team to get their chance to shine … Just look at the Yankees. People wondered what would happen after Derek Jeter left, and they’re going to win the World Series again this year.”
Rocchio says Valentino had one of its busiest summers ever, boosted by its participation in the Crave/ Greater Fort Lauderdale restaurant promotion. But that meant he couldn’t take his customary September leave to travel and work in a fine-dining kitchen, an unpaid educational gig known as a stage. He did stages in San Francisco, New York and Italy in previous years.
“I had no time to do that because it was impossible for me to take a break — that’s when I realized the only way for me to have a life was to sell,” Rocchio wrote by text earlier this week.
As he worked the stove on Tuesday, preparing a plate of housemade gemelli with minced rabbit, Rocchio said, “Never say never but I don’t think I’ll ever work in a restaurant kitchen again. I just want some time to do things I haven’t had time to do.”