Fabio Vivani’s road to success did not happen by chance. The Top Chef contestant came from very humble beginnings and has literally worked his way from the bottom to the top of the restaurant industry, starting at a very young age. He hasn’t only experienced success in his home country of Italy, but has seized the opportunity to capitalize on his talents and notoriety as a celebrity chef in the U.S. He’s partnered with the DineAmic Restaurant Group to open concepts in Chicago and Miami and also has his own signature wines. I sat down with Fabio at his Siena Tavern restaurant located in downtown Chicago for a very intimate conversation about his life, his food and his legacy.
DC: Fabio, you’re success is blowing up and it seems like you are seen everywhere. I know that you started at a young age, but where does your passion for cooking come from?
FV: Honestly it didn’t start with passion. It started because I needed job. The restaurant a few miles away from my house hired me. But if there had been a pet store next to my house I probably would have been a Veterinarian by now. I just needed money and the restaurant was the place that hired me and gave me career. I didn’t dream of being a chef, in-fact I hated it for the first few years. And then I got good at it and realized that I could make a business out of this. I started working when I was eleven years old and opened my first restaurant at eighteen and haven’t looked back since.
DC: Was there ever a point when you thought that you wanted to find something else to do instead of being a chef?
FV: I did, but nobody was paying me enough money so I stuck it out in the kitchen for the first few years. Because I was so young, I couldn’t get hired during the day, because of child labor laws. But at night time nobody gave a crap and nobody was checking who was working at night. So I remember that they were paying me $600 a week. If you’re eleven years old and making $3000 a month and not drug dealing, then you’re doing very well. I was working my butt off in a bakery shop and because it was at night it was very hard work, but they were paying well. So why would I want to go and make $6 an hour when I could make $600 a week? That’s why I stuck with it for two years working every night seven days a week as a kid. The owner of the bakery shop asked me why I worked so hard. I told him that my mother was sick and I needed the money to help my family pay the bills. The owner then told me that if I was still around the following year that he would let me work in his kitchen, because I would be 14 years old and legally able to work during the day. But since I had to go to school, I started my shift at two in the afternoon and finished after midnight every day. Unless the restaurant was shutting down for some reason I never had a day off. When I turned eighteen the owner of the bakery asked me to be his partner, because I was the hardest working guy that he had ever saw. And from 18 years old to 27 years old we opened five restaurants together.
DC: Did you ever take a break during that time when you were working and opening restaurants?
FV: Yes, I was taken to the hospital three times for exhaustion, so that was a long break for me. I took a few days off here and there, but I’m not good at taking days off. I don’t know what to do with myself when I take days off. I have a long candle that burns, so I’m able to do it.
"The right wall for me is the one that can build a legacy...the reality is that money is not the goal. Legacy is the goal. " FV