What Happened To Chef Rocco DiSpirito?
In the pilot episode of the TV show "The Restaurant," chef Rocco DiSpirito told his newly-hired servers that as a server, "You take an unwritten oath that you're going to be responsible for the person's happiness while they're in your care." The quote perfectly captures his philosophy about foodie careers. It's a profession that he admits that he's still in love with, some 40-plus years after getting his start in the restaurant industry as a preteen. Given his passion for food and the number of awards he's won, including the 2004 James Beard Award for his cookbook "Flavor," his seeming disappearance from public life after "The Restaurant" ended after being on air for just one year is puzzling, to say the least.
However, in DiSpirito's case, out of sight doesn't equal out of mind, nor does it equal an end to his culinary career. On the contrary, while his prospects for cooking in a restaurant have proven fickle sometimes, DiSpirito has repeatedly demonstrated that he — and not some short-lived TV show — is the maker of his luck. Since he left the TV series, he has worked toward improving the food community and health and wellness field, opening doors of opportunity that could have hardly been foreseen once the TV screen went dark for the last time. Whatever happened to Rocco DiSpirito? Plenty, as it turns out. If you're a fan, here's what you need to know.
How Rocco DiSpirito got his start in food
For many people, slinging pizzas is a go-to first-time job, though it is just that — a first-time job. Few who start out in pieland see it as a stepping stone to a career as a big-time chef. But that's one of the things that separates Rocco DiSpirito from the rest of the pie-slinging pack. When he got his first job in a pizzeria, he was just 11 years old.
This also begs the question, why did DiSpirito get a job in a pizzeria at age 11 in the first place? The answer is a great story of its own and the stuff legends are made of. DiSpirito told Chef Works he moved into pieland because he wanted to buy a KISS album. Sure, he made a whopping $.75 a week allowance before the job in the pizzeria. However, earning the amount he needed to buy the album would have taken a long, long time. When he told his mother he wanted more money per week and why he wanted it, she told him to get a job if he insisted on procuring the degenerate album. So, he did, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He attended the Culinary Institute of America at age 16
Anthony Bourdain. Anne Burrell. Rocco DiSpirito. This list represents a "Who's Who?" among the graduates of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). That DiSpirito stands among such giants in the culinary world would hardly qualify as the surprise of the century. What might be surprising, however, is the fact that DiSpirito attended the Culinary Institute of America when he was only 16 years old, just five short years after he got his first job in a local pizzeria at 11 years of age.
Attendance at such an institution represents a necessary part of the dues-paying process for those who will be A-list chef restaurant owners one day. Although the Culinary Institute of America's tuition isn't cheap, most industry experts agree that attending the Institute is worth the price because of the doors that a CIA education continues to open. The CIA routinely lands on the "Best Of" lists in industry publications like Full Service Restaurant magazine, as well as on renowned college prep websites like Prep Scholar, ensuring its place among the creme de la creme foodie training schools in America.
But DiSpirito's education didn't end with his stint in culinary school. He went on to get a bachelor's degree in Hospitality Administration and Management from Boston University, giving the famous chef the educational and practical knowledge he needed to advance his career in the food industry.
DiSpirito opened Union Pacific restaurant in 1997
Rocco DiSpirito spent several years traipsing around the planet, partaking in activities that make his pre-fame life read like the "Lost Years of Jesus." In 1988, two years before he graduated from Boston University, DiSpirito exercised his gourmet chops at Adrienne in the Peninsula Hotel in New York, where he worked under the tutelage of Jacques Chibois and Jean-Michel Diot. Following that, it was Chef Mark Baker of Aujourd'hui fame that led DiSpirito to find his Zen with French-Asian fusion. He also opened his own restaurant, the short-lived Dava, landing him on the list of the most ambitious grads of the Culinary Institute of America.
The Italian-American chef's fusion experience put him on the radar of two restauranteurs, Jeff Kadish and Steven Scher, who set their sights on making a name for themselves in the fusion restaurant world. DiSpirito's unique fusion style seemed like a match made in foodie heaven for Kadish's and Scher's would-be fusion restaurant, Union Pacific. The year was 1997, and the restaurant's menu fell on the side of pure, unadulterated Rocco. One critic, Ruth Reichl, eventually gave DiSpirito's cooking at Union Pacific three stars in a New York Times review, along with the exclamation that pretty much everything on DiSpirito's menu was "wonderful" and a thing of beauty that came from "some other place." For a time, Union Pacific was the place to be. It was even host for events like the "Mostly Martha" film screening and after-hours party in 2002.
He burst into public consciousness in 2003 with The Restaurant
Depending on how you look at it, here is a sad or happy fact. The closest most of us will ever get to rubbing elbows with a famous chef will come via the voyeuristic peek that our television sets provide for us, not because we'll eat in the chef's restaurant. That's how most of us got to know Rocco DiSpirito, via his 2003 TV show "The Restaurant" when he opened his Italian restaurant called Rocco's.
But what a look it was. The opening credits of the show introduced foodie reality TV fans to Rocco's world, including to his mother, Nicolina DiSpirito, who the TV chef positioned in the kitchen as chief meatball maker to give the place an air of authentic Italian culture and cooking. For those who work in the restaurant business, the behind-the-scenes look at the opening of a restaurant equals the stuff of nightmares. A seemingly cursed restaurant location, staff friction, and white hat versus black hat friction between DiSpirito and financier and restauranteur, Jeffrey Chodorow, made for great television but not-so-great working conditions. By 2004, DiSpirito found himself disinvited to his own restaurant, and Chodorow served him with an injunction that prevented him from stepping foot into the restaurant that bore his name.
After he was ousted from Rocco's, he didn't work in a restaurant for 15 years
Presumably, a would-be chef goes to culinary school to be a chef. And indeed, in Rocco DiSpirito's case, he moved along the expected career path to restaurant chefdom fairly steadily, at least until he lost his gig at Rocco's. After that, the TV chef didn't step foot into a restaurant kitchen for 15 years until he began working at The Standard Grill in New York City, where he had a chance to marry the healthy cooking he'd adopted with a restaurant atmosphere. The gig gave him the chance to try out cooking with fresh garden produce and grass-fed beef, and to add "new and important" elements to fine dining restaurant cooking, he told the New York Post. He joined the Standard's team for the 10-year anniversary in 2018 and was out by 2019.
The temporary collaboration between DiSpirito and his restaurant partners was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that he still had what it took to run a restaurant kitchen. However, that's not to say that DiSpirito spent those 15 years being idle. He penned numerous cookbooks. He also spent a lot of time working with charities like City Harvest and Feeding America. In the former case, the famous chef did what he could to fight food insecurity in NYC. In the latter case, DiSpirito got personally involved by visiting different schools and teaching kids about nutrition. He even served them lunch during his visits.
Some of his time was spent creating a meal delivery company
In 2006, Rocco DiSpirito began training for the super race to end all races, Iron Man. The TV chef found himself facing some big obstacles even before he laced up his sneakers. Thirty pounds of extra weight insisted on hanging onto his frame. However, this became a blessing in disguise. DiSpirito changed his diet as he trained for the race. He made his favorite recipes, but he began substituting fattening ingredients with low-cal, highly nutrient-dense foods.
One thing led to another, inspiring him to write a series of weight loss books. Eventually, the Pound a Day Diet book became the Pound a Day Meal Delivery Service. The program takes all the guesswork out of following a nutrition plan by morphing it into a meal delivery service that's designed to help people lose weight following the principles DiSpirito learned on his weight loss journey.
The diet requires people to eat 850 calories daily during the week and 1,200 calories on the weekends during phase one. During phase two, more food makes its way to the dieter's plate, and an emphasis on learning to eat healthier for the rest of the dieter's life takes center stage. In an interview with People, DiSpirito recommends people follow the Mediterranean diet upon completion of the diet in order to maintain their weight loss.
Rocco DiSpirito was his mother's caregiver at the end of her life
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website suggests that more than 40 million American adults have taken on the responsibility of caring for an elderly relative. Those who do typically range in age from 45 to 64 years of age. However, stats like these don't become real until they have a face attached to them, and the one we're offering up today belongs to celeb chef, Rocco DiSpirito. During his 15-year-long restaurant hiatus, caring for his mother, from around 2005 when she had a heart attack until she passed away in 2013, accounted for a big chunk of DiSpirito's time.
Despite having the help of home health aides, the stress and strain from his caretaking tasks damaged the TV chef's health. At one point, he required back surgery to correct the issues that a lifetime of working in a kitchen, as well as the responsibility of taking care of his mother, brought on. The back surgery left him in a wheelchair for some time.
How things have changed since he started cooking
In cooking school, Rocco DiSpirito learned how to cook. While that might garner a "Well, duh," from readers, he has admitted in interviews that he wishes that he had also learned more about the social aspect of working in restaurants. "The kitchen's really about camaraderie," he said in a Chef Works interview. Having after-work drinks with staff and building relationships weren't really a part of his culinary school curriculum. Nowadays, it's different with relationship-building being an important part of both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house operations.
Despite coming across as very charming and chatty in interviews, DiSpirito wouldn't say he naturally has the gift of gab. On the contrary, he dealt with anxiety very early on in life and began seeing a therapist to help him conquer his anxiety by the time he rolled through second grade. His natural reluctance to chat it up with the guests in his restaurants led him down the path of the master thespian. An acting coach helped develop some scripted talking points that allowed him to interact with guests before he opened up Union Pacific Restaurant. On a brighter note, the acting lessons likely served him well, given that much of his career as a celebrity chef has been more celebrity than chef, a situation that makes being able to talk to all types of people a necessity rather than an option.
He hasn't found his work-life balance
For many food service workers today, achieving work-life balance equals a task as large as rebuilding the Colossus of Rhodes. As it turns out, Rocco DiSpirito finds the whole work-life balance thing elusive, saying in an interview with Chef Works that he, DiSprito, works "way too much."
And while 73% of workers (according to FlexJobs) say that they consider work-life balance to be so important that they'll base their job choices on whether or not a prospective job provides them with work-life balance, DiSpirito has come up with another solution entirely to the issue. As a child of immigrants, he admits that chasing after and achieving the American Dream still rank high on his list of must-dos for this lifetime. However, he also concedes that he's still "in love with cooking" and further suggests that maybe a work-life balance is overrated if you like what you do. He definitely proves the saying, "Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."
DiSpirito admits to a few guilty foodie pleasures
For a guy who has dedicated most of the pages of his 13 cookbooks to healthy living and weight loss, you'd think Rocco DiSpirito would have conquered the guilty-pleasure beast that so many of us fight against daily. But while DiSpirito may live the life of the keto-based celeb chef most of the time, he hasn't completely done away with his own personal guilty pleasures list, making him all the more endearing to those of us who still try to whack the beast out of sight and back into the corners of our kitchens.
So, what is it, exactly, that makes the TV chef abandon his diet for junk food madness? Of his guilty pleasures, he tells Chef Works, "I'm extremely in love with pizza, with whiskey, with Chinese takeout." And we're not talking about any ordinary Chinese takeout. If it's waaay greasy and waaay late at night when he's eating it, all the better. But even that pales in comparison to his guiltiest pleasure, the bacon bowl, a number that combines layers of tater tots, cheese, and bacon, bacon, and more bacon. It's baked to searing deliciousness in the oven. "It's such trash," says DiSpirito. "But it's so good."
His legacy encompasses so much more than The Restaurant
Fame is fickle, and for someone like Rocco DiSpirito, who became famous because of a TV show, it'd be tempting to think that his legacy begins and ends with "The Restaurant." Given that "The Restaurant" ran a while ago, it would appear that DiSpirito has already seen his glory days. But he doesn't see it that way. In fact, he maintains that his legacy is so much more than a TV show that ran for a year. It doesn't count among the top things he'd like to be known for.
Instead, as a chef, he wants people to remember a raw scallop dish he created from scratch. The memory of creating it still lingers in his chef's brain, DiSpirito mentioned in his interview with Chef Works. Of equal importance are the people who tried it and who remember it.
Aside from that, he wants people to remember the impact his work has made on the health and wellness world. His contributions to that world include inspiration. The man challenged himself to do one of the biggest triathlon endurance races on Earth, the Iron Man, demonstrating some raw talent and determination that goes beyond his kitchen persona. And he leaves behind books like "Rocco's Keto Comfort Food Diet" and "The Pound a Day Diet" to help people become their best physical selves.
We may be seeing more of Rocco DiSpirito
Given the flash-in-the-pan nature of fame, it's easy to forget that most careers last longer than the TV shows that portray them. For Rocco DiSpirito, his culinary career has endured for 40-plus years, demonstrating his commitment to the food world and his place in it. While it remains to be seen if he'll wear the title of head chef at another restaurant in the future, there is no indication that he plans to slow down his foodie career activities.
In an interview with Mashed, DiSpirito said that he has explored working more with technology as a means to track health and wellness, and his most recent ventures have seen him work on a one-on-one basis with a number of clients in the New York City area. The TV-chef-turned-health-and-wellness entrepreneur guides them as they learn to make better choices for their health. DiSpirito plans to continue that work.
On a more personal note, he'll indulge the passion for cooking and all the sensorial experiences that come with it. His next book, "Rocco Happy at Home," invites readers to indulge in the pleasures of cooking at home. For someone who named his first book "Flavor," his current book-in-the-works looks less at the healthy part of eating and more at the delish part of eating, bringing him full circle on his professional foodie journey.