Eat Your Way Around the World: Chef Giannicola Colucci, Turin, Italy

Giannicola Colucci could have become an architect like his father hoped. He could have made a career out of the Navy like he’d planned when he first began his two years of conscripted military service at age 18.

Instead, he chose to let food be his way to experience the world, pursuing culinary school in Italy.

“You know when you feel something call you,” Colucci says.

Giannicola Colucci, chef at Le Bistro at The Bar, swirls ingredients in a sauce pan as a splash of Scotch whiskey ignites in the pan.Photo by Aaron Eisenhauer

After culinary school, Colucci worked at the small restaurant Il Cambio in Turin, Italy, with Chef Angelo Maionchi, whom he says taught him “everything” and gave him “the opportunity to learn his world.”

In 1997, Colucci moved to New York, where he learned from celebrity Chef Lidia Bastianich. He worked for her for one year before moving back to Italy to work at the luxury hotel Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri. It was during his nine years there he says he fell in love with luxury-style hotel life and decided he wanted to pursue this avenue. During the hotel’s off-season, Colucci traveled the world, working in Indonesia, India, Japan, China, Switzerland, Russia and Canada. He also opened restaurants in Thailand and Italy.

“Working around the world teaches you one important point. You need to be able to perceive, understand as much as you can what is different [in one place] than other spots,” Colucci says. “Understanding concept, mentality, culture — you come over and you see something, say, ‘Oh, this is strange,’ and then say, ‘How these people can live in this way?’ And then you realize they can ask the same question. … It’s been really important to open my mind, to understand the people and to be part of the people. … To try to understand how you can work together, how you can make better.”

Photo by Aaron Eisenhauer

After his time in Capri, he worked for Four Seasons in the United Kingdom, becoming executive chef. He then worked at Joia Restaurant, a one-star Michelin restaurant in Milan, Italy, and then at Don Alfonso Restaurant, a two-star Michelin restaurant in Naples, Italy. He wanted to learn to manage a restaurant, so he went back to work for Four Seasons, but this time in London, where he says his mind was opened to a corporate style of business, rather than the family style he was used to in Italy. He realized this was the direction in which he wanted to go.

From there, he worked as an executive chef at the iconic Danieli Hotel in Venice, Italy, for six years before moving to St. Louis to work again for Four Seasons. It was during this time he met Gabriele Ruggieri, owner of Gabriel’s Food + Wine and Speck in Cape Girardeau. Ruggieri invited him to move to Cape Girardeau so they could open a restaurant together, but Colucci wanted to continue focusing on his corporate career. He moved to Four Seasons’ flagship hotel in Toronto, where he was the executive chef and director of culinary for two years, overseeing more than 60 chefs and five different kitchens, with two French food concepts in collaboration with Chef Daniel Boulud. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, he decided to move to Cape Girardeau to help Ruggieri open Speck. Once here, he found The Bar and “fell in love with the place.”

Photo by Aaron Eisenhauer

“From being responsible for $34 million in Four Seasons Toronto, I started to open my own place,” Colucci says. “Little bitty bistro, but for sure [I am] more excited because it’s mine — I decide what I want to do, how I want to do. And that is the cool part of this business.”

It was the history of the building that drew Colucci to The Bar, where scenes from “Gone Girl” were filmed. He likes the fact he had the opportunity to open a restaurant with a story behind it; he cooked for many of the actors and actresses who were in the movie when he worked in Capri. To pay homage to the French history of Cape Girardeau, he decided to serve French cuisine at his restaurant, Le Bistro.

For Colucci, food requires sacrifice.

“For me, food is all about patience and time,” he says. “You cannot cook and serve a good meal if you don’t spend a little of your time in preparation, a little of time in the concept behind. … Everything you do in your life needs time. More time you dedicate, more patience you put in, the better it is going to be. … It’s just about listening to what the food requires.”