Antonio Ghilarducci, the son of owners Mike and Gia Ghilarducci will be permanently joining the team at the Depot Hotel as Executive Chef. As a young boy Antonio often helped his father in the kitchen and often returned over the years to work special functions.
Antonio graduated high
school in 2000 from Justin-Siena in Napa and moved to San Jose to study at San
Jose State University. Before long, Antonio began working in the kitchens
at the university, cooking for faculty and students there. Cooking
quickly became more important than academics and he left both to study at San
Francisco City College in the Culinary Arts Department. This is the
oldest cooking school on the West Coast and the same school that his father
attended thirty years earlier. He graduated among the top five in his
class in 2002 and obtained his Associates Degree in Culinary Arts and
Hospitality Studies.
During his school years, he had the opportunity to cook
in France for a group of Americans with Chef Jacques Pepin. Chef Pepin
took a liking to Antonio and gave him a recommendation for an internship with
Roland Passot of the famous La Folie and Left Bank restaurants. Antonio
eventually left La Folie, having worked in Garde Manger, Hot Appetizers and
Pastry stations. He moved to Napa to pursue a job with the newly opened
Angele under Chef Christophe Gerard as a Chef de Partie.
Antonio remained there for a year before taking a job at
The French Laundry again as a Chef de Partie under Chef Thomas Keller.
After six months at the French Laundry, one of the Sous Chefs, Ryan Fancher
left the French Laundry to open El Dorado Kitchen in Sonoma. Antonio came
with him as Lead Line Cook to open the new restaurant.
After two years, Antonio felt he needed to take a
management position and worked as Sous Chef and later, Chef de Cuisine at Shiso
restaurant in Sonoma. After Shiso, Antonio took some time off to start a
website, www.thecelerybranch.com,
about food and cooking, which he still operates. Now, he has come full
circle back to the place he grew up. He is looking forward to cooking and
teaching--combining his unique culinary experience with the rustic, Tuscan
cuisine of the Depot Hotel.
Antonio has created a lively new Vinoteca antipasto
bar at the Depot Hotel--with small plates of Tuscan delicacies and great
local Sonoma Valley wines. He is also creating a new series of Cooking
Classes and also a series of special Private Cellar Dinners where guests may
bring their own wines (no corkage!) but enjoy great cuisine. His greatest
enthusiasm is for creating new dishes in the kitchen to go on the
menu--which changes daily.
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