When award winning Chef Gabriele Paganelli was asked how his restaurant in an industrial nook, away from Toronto’s hip neighbourhoods became so well known, his response was “ Where do you want me to start? When I came to Canada? My life in Italy before I came? I was the second child of nine children. We grew up on a farm, raising our own cows, pigs, etc. Every winter we were slaughtering four pigs to feed our family. Back home this is an event, so neighbours and family come to help and we return the favour by helping them. In the winter I’d assist 10-12 of these ‘graduations’.”

“When I grew up, I went to school and studied electronics to learn how to repair televisions and radios. My school was far from town, so when I got home, my brothers and sisters had eaten everything, so I had to start cooking for myself. This is where the passion started, so I began cooking for family and friends. After my mandatory army service, I decided to switch careers and cook as a profession. It was good because I can’t eat a transistor, but can now eat whatever I create! My parents bought a small store in our hometown of Ravenna (a tourist destination in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy) so I started cooking there as a summer job. Parmigiano, mortadella, a lot of the big salumi come from my area.”