Private Chef Francesco Norristown, PA, United States

Modern French techniques with Italian and Asian influence

Modern French techniques with Italian and Asian influence using organic products and working with small production farms in area .

CHEF FRANCESCO Chef Francesco’s style doesn’t limit each country’s cuisine to its own ingredients and traditions. Instead, Chef Francesco sees culinary combinations that should earn him the attention of the United Nations. His blends of Italian, Asian and French flavors break down rigid barriers, resulting in a cuisine that is entirely his own. Francesco’s culinary combinations have earned him plenty of attention: In 1990, while Chef/Partner at Ciboulette in Philadelphia, Francesco was named one of Food and Wine’s “Best New Chefs”; in 1999, as Executive Chef at Georges Perrier’s new Brasserie Perrier, he was nominated for the Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic James Beard Award. In fact, wherever Francesco has hung his toque, he has garnered rave reviews and glowing praise. Gourmet magazine described his creations as “a cookery course in a capsule.” His skills inspired Perrier to create Brasserie to showcase Francesco’s unique cuisine. The eclectic blend of flavors and styles that characterize Martorella’s cooking is a natural extension of the man himself. Born into an Italian family in South Philadelphia, he spent summers in the Abruzze region watching his grandparents create olive oil and fresh pasta. His father was a chef, and although Martorella wasn’t initially sure he wanted to follow in his footsteps, he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. It was here, over the hot stoves where he learned classic French cooking techniques, that his passion for cooking was ignited. After graduation, the young chef worked at a series of French restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C., before returning to his hometown, where he became sous chef to Chef Jean-Marie Lacroix at the Four Seasons Hotel, Philadelphia. It was here that he met fellow chef Bruce Lim, with whom he joined forces to create a French eatery called Ciboulette. After Ciboulette, he moved to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Philadelphia, where he began

Asian, French, Italian, Thai