Pietro Vardeu – Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante

Good things happen when Chef Pietro Vardeu, owner of Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante, gets bored. It’s what caused the native of Sardinia, Italy, to leave his homeland in 1976 and head for London, where he began learning the food industry at such venerable London institutions as Scott’s Restaurant. He continued his on-the-job training in Florence, Italy, preferring to spend time working and observing in restaurant kitchens over attending “any of those boring schools.”

He left Florence in 1982 for New York City, where family friend Pino Luongo hired him as a waiter at Il Cantinori. Two years later, itching for something more challenging, he opened his first restaurant, Pappardella. Problems with the chef he hired from Italy prompted Vardeu to tackle the chef role himself, which helped launch the restaurant from neighborhood favorite to destination restaurant.  

After a brief return to restaurant management at Pino Luongo’s Sapore di Mare, Vardeu again longed for a place of his own. Over the course of about five years, he took the Hamptons by storm, acting as chef and owner or co-owner of Basilico, I Santi, Calaluna and Cala di Volpe. Calaluna, his first restaurant to focus on Sardinian cuisine, was called “the hit of the resort season” by The New York Times, and he was invited to cook Sardinian meals three times by the James Beard Foundation.

Antonio Gallo – Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante

Torino, the capital of Piedmont, Italy, and home to the original white truffle from Alba, was Antonio Gallo’s playground for many years. Born and raised in this magnificent city, Antonio first encountered the magic of great cooking, helping his mother prepared fresh tomato sauce, packing it in glass containers and storing it for use in their dinners. As a teenager he started working in restaurants and shortly after came to the United States. Here he learned the language, working as a bus boy, and in 1993 after six years of traveling back and forth to Italy, working as a waiter, and restaurant manager, he and his brother opened a restaurant in Manhattan. Caffe Torino was a very successful restaurant in Greenwich Village, and became the stepping-stone for Antonio’s future. In love with New York City but tired of the cold weather he came to Miami and worked as a manager at Robert DeNiro’s Ago Restaurant, one of Miami’s favorite for celebrities and locals alike. Seeing Miami’s need for a wine-themed restaurant Antonio teamed up with Pietro Vardeu to create Sardinia, a place for great wine and an Italian culinary adventure.