Name: Giovanni Rocchio

Title: Chef/owner, Valentino’s Cucina Italiana, 1145 South Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale, 954-523-5767, valentinoscucinaitaliana.com

Age: 44

Years at this location: 4

Type of food served: Modern Italian

Background: Rocchio grew up in the restaurant business, starting out as a dishwasher, then making his way up the culinary ladder at his father’s restaurant, also called Valentino’s, in Plantation. After studying business at Broward Community College, he left Florida to work in the New York City restaurants Fiamma and Picholine, while spending his off days working for free in Mario Batali’s Lupa Osteria Romano, Del Posto and Babbo restaurants. When his father, Antonio, retired, the younger Rocchio moved the restaurant east and updated the menu. This fall, Rocchio will move Valentino’s two blocks north and open a casual pizzeria/osteria in the current location. He lives in Plantation with his girlfriend, Elke Quintana, who, as a hostess at the restaurant, “adds a little elegance to the place.”

What’s your favorite cooking memory?

Hanging out and cooking in Italy. I went there in 1984, when I was in my early 20s, to work in an awesome restaurant in Venice, where I learned to make risottos and sardines as Venetians make them. I was hanging out with kids who were really into food and liked the Italian lifestyle. In Italy, we’d serve lunch from 12 to 2, then close at 3 and go to the beach or take a nap. Then we’d come back to the restaurant at 6 and eat as a family and reopen from 7 until around 10 or 11. It’s a great lifestyle. At my restaurant, I get to work between 10 and noon and stay until 1 in the morning.

Have you adapted anything from the Italian lifestyle into your approach to business?

When I worked for my father, I missed concerts and football games and promised myself I’d have a more reasonable lifestyle once I opened my own restaurant. I’m closed on Sundays and Mondays, and sometimes close when there’s a concert I want to see. We close for six weeks in the summer – for all of August and two weeks of September. It’s no fun to look back and wonder where your life has gone. I don’t want to live that way.

What’s your favorite place to travel?

The Amalfi Coast. I love that part of Italy because I love the mountains overlooking the ocean and the food is so fresh – the lemons and tomatoes – and the winding roads are beautiful. My dad’s from Naples and I visit family and check out restaurants there.

How do you come up with new ideas for your menu?

When chef friends visit from New York, we’ll go into the kitchen and try new recipes. I don’t sleep much because my brain’s always going, so that’s when I come up with ideas, too. I also like to look at my old notes from when I worked in New York and, for example, take a set-up for one dish and combine it with a sauce from another. After awhile you just know what combinations work. No one’s reinventing the wheel. It’s just different combinations of things that have been around for awhile and work.

If you hadn’t become a chef, you would have gone into what?

Sports. I always wanted to play football. I played quarterback and defensive end at Plantation High but couldn’t go away to college because I had to stay here and work with the family. I would play sports professionally for no money. I wouldn’t need $20 million to do what I love.

How do you spend your time off?

I play a lot of basketball. That’s why we’re closed on Mondays. So I can play basketball with a group of friends I’ve been playing with for a long time. We play like we’re getting paid and give it 100 percent. It gets rough and you usually have some scrapes and bruises by the time you leave. But at the end of the day, we’re all friends.

Are there any restaurant trends you particularly like?

I kind of like the new trend of serving tapas, the little plates, because it gives you the opportunity to try 10 different plates rather than one plate with a huge portion. When it’s done well, it’s nice. You get two or three bites and can move on from that.

Can you recommend any tapas restaurants?

Sugarcane (Raw Bar Grill) and Gigi in midtown Miami.

Where do you dine on your days off?

I go down to Miami Beach for Casa Tua or drive up to Palm Beach for Cafe Boulud.

– Joan Lipinsky Cochran