Platelist: Chef Shea Gallante's Journey From Pizzeria to Fine Dining

Restaurateur and chef got his start working in a local pizza joint.

ByABC News
March 10, 2011, 12:56 PM

March 30, 2011— -- Growing up on his mother's farm in upstate New York, executive chef and restaurateur Shea Gallante learned to appreciate the deliciousness of fresh produce -- and he carried that with him to his Manhattan restaurant, where the motto is "From Farm to Fork."

But growing up on his mother's farm in Dutchess County, a rural area about 70 miles north of New York City, Gallante said he was surrounded by fresh produce and it was where he made some of his fondest food memories.

"Picking sweet corn from like the field right behind our house and cooking it in a barbecue, it was awesome," he said. "It was more fun going and taking it and putting it in a bag and running back to the house."

Sunday dinners and holidays were particularly important to the Gallante family, and an excuse to get together and to share traditional family dishes.

"It was probably where my family spent the most time together was around food," he said.

Click here to read some of Shea Gallante's favorite recipes

But it was when he began looking to make some extra money off the farm that he became immersed in cooking.

"In Duchess County there isn't a huge resource of jobs for a kid in their teens," he said. "Food was an obvious choice. For me up there it was kind of like the American-Italian mom and pop joint. That's how I really got into the pizza business."

A self-proclaimed "junk food junkie" during his teenage years, Gallante took his first restaurant job in a pizza joint during college. Soon after, he left school, broke out on his own and opened a pizza place at age 20.