Giovanni D’Ecclesiis is the executive chef for the 4 venues at the "Il Fogliano Hotel New Life" in Latina. At the gourmet restaurant "Il Vistamare," he pours his passion, leveraging knowledge and experience accrued over 20 years of working in 11 fine dining restaurants within luxury hotels throughout Italy and in London.
Giovanni D’Ecclesiis was born in the early '80s in Gravina in Puglia. When the time came to choose his future after middle school, Giovanni explored various higher education institutions. However, as soon as he stepped into the cooking classroom of the hotel school, he realized that it was his natural habitat and decided to become a chef. Giovanni attended the institute in Matera and began his first work experiences as a student. He started as a commis in the seasonal hotels of Cervia, where he worked for 4 years, then moved to the "Relais Villa San Paolo" in San Gimignano, Tuscany, where he learned a lot and was granted opportunities to work in increasingly prestigious restaurants.
In 2007, he had his first MICHELIN-Star experience at "I Salotti" at Villa Il Patriarca, also in Tuscany, where young D’Ecclesiis realized he wanted to pursue high-level training through work. Indeed, without hesitation, the following year he moved to the Relais & Châteaux restaurant "La Sala dei Grappoli," One MICHELIN Star, under the wise guidance of chef Massimiliano Blasone with consulting from Heinz Beck. Following Massimiliano and Heinz, in 2009, Giovanni landed in London, at the "The Lanesborough" hotel at the "Apsley's" restaurant, which received a MICHELIN Star (later lost) in 2010.
But his thirst for knowledge led him to move again. In 2011, he returned to Italy, to Montalcino, and began a 4-year journey at "Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco," a luxury hotel where Giovanni trained in "Leadership Relationship" and served as head of service both at the "Campo del Drago" restaurant and "La Canonica." This experience was followed by shorter experiences: in 2016 at "Belmond Villa San Michele," Giovanni served as the first sous chef where, in addition to learning to manage a large brigade of 16 cooks, he trained in vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free cooking. That same year, in June, he devoted himself to volunteer work with the environmental protection association "Angeli del Bello."
In 2017, he moved to the "Relais La Suvera," now closed, and then to the "Ristorante Gallo Nero" in Siena, where he stayed for 2 and a half years. In 2020, a turning point occurred when Giovanni became a private chef for the Luxus Group, thus having the opportunity to experiment and create dishes to high standards.
The lengthy training and various experiences accumulated allowed D’Ecclesiis to become an executive chef at the "Il Fogliano Hotel New Life" in Latina, in 2021. Here he manages the menus of 4 restaurants and a brigade of 22 cooks. At the restaurant "Il Vistamare," the hotel's gourmet venue, Giovanni transforms excellent local raw materials into refined creations with Mediterranean flavors, with the aim, in addition to creating a unique experience for his customers, of regaining the MICHELIN Star lost by the restaurant in 2019. As a working father, Giovanni daily expresses his passion and desire to succeed.
