Steve and Joanna Vernetti bought Larchmont’s beloved Italian restaurant, Girasole, in Fall 2013, and worked closely with it’s former owner during the transition. They closed for remodel and redesign, led by David Thompson, founder and principal at Assembledge+, in September 2014. Joanna Vernetti collaborated with Thompson on the restaurant’s design and sourced all the interior materials and fixtures from various artisans and fabricators to evoke a modernized European bistro aesthetic.
Chef Steve Vernetti’s take on Italian-American cuisine reflects a lifetime of diverse experiences and training. At age six, his mother taught him to cook on the family’s working ranch in Nevada, where they grew their own produce and raised livestock. As an adult, cooking became his vocation and Vernetti honed his art by traveling throughout Europe to Berlin, Paris, Venice, Florence, Amsterdam and Brussels. For seven years, he trained with some of the most prominent chefs in London: with Chef Charles Fontaine at Quality Chop House; at Le Caprice, Neal Street and Carluccio’s; and at Byron restaurant in Hampstead, where he was executive chef. When Chef Vernetti and his wife, Joanna, now co-founder of a television production company and the restaurant’s creative visionary and business manager, moved back to the U.S. in the late 1990s, he cooked with The Patina Group in Los Angeles. The Vernettis settled in Larchmont and are now raising their three children here.
Vernetti is in the restaurant every day, making healthy, flavorful dishes – both traditional and innovative. Filling his restaurant with the happy sounds of his community. During the remodel, he traveled, researched and tasted to ensure every dish at Vernetti is made with the highest quality ingredients.
Vernetti has become a focal point of Larchmont, a neighborhood restaurant where where old school meets new school Italian. Inspired by a century long history of Italian-American cuisine, Chef Steve Vernetti shares his passion for fresh, delicious Italian food made simply, with the best ingredients. Steve feeds the community as he does his own family, providing a special place to celebrate all the amazing things that happen when sharing a delicious meal.
Connect with Vernetti on Facebook and on Instagram.
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