Chef

Flavio was always cooking at home as a child with his parents and his first piece of writing was a recipe for a banana smoothie! As a teenager, he began working in the kitchen at Caldesi in Campagna under the supervision of his godfather and Head Chef Gregorio Piazza. After A-Levels he followed a year’s apprenticeship course at Westminster Catering School and The Ritz, London.

From London, Flavio moved to Paris to study at Patisserie School Ferrandi. Part of his course led him to work at La Dame de Pic, a one-Michelin starred restaurant. He then moved back to London and worked between the two Caldesi restaurants. He is currently cheffing in Pierluigi restaurant in Rome. We hope he will rejoin the family business in the future.

Favourite Italian dish
Pasta with tomato sauce

Favourite Italian place
Cetona, Tuscany.

Which 3 dinner guests would you invite to a fantasy dinner party
Winston Churchill, King Richard 1st The Lionheart and Gaius Mucius Scaevol. Churchill so none of us look like an alcoholic, King Richard to find out more about the crusades and Gaius because he was a soldier. I would ask them about their lives.

Head Chef, Caldesi in Campagna

Gregorio Piazza started working for Caldesi as a waiter at 19 years of age. Straight from Ragusa in Sicily this was his first time in London. “His waiting skills left rather a lot to be desired, in fact, he was a terrible waiter!” says Giancarlo. “And so despite liking him, he had to go!”

Gregorio travelled to China and throughout Italy for a year and returned to London to study Westminster College for Culinary Arts. He wrote a letter to Giancarlo asking to come back to the restaurant but this time in the kitchen. After each day at college, he worked as a washer-up in the evenings.

After completing the course, Gregorio moved into cooking and worked in the starter section. Within a year he moved to the position of sous-chef and then Head Chef. His meteoric rise was expedited by spells in Tuscany working at well-known restaurants. Giancarlo said “he was naturally gifted, his sense of flavour and balance make him a stand-out chef”.

Gregorio worked at Head Chef at Caldesi Tuscan Restaurant in Marylebone for 8 years. When the building was demolished, he moved to Caldesi in Campagna in Bray where he has been the “rock” in the kitchen since we opened in 2007.

Gregorio is delighted that we won Best Restaurant in the UK on the Muddy Stiletto Awards 2025, an honour that resulted from customer’s votes. Giancarlo and Gregorio have cooked together for 30 years and as Gregorio says “it is like one person cooking”. Their style is firmly rooted in rural Italian cookery. They have a bond and their cooking is exactly the same, even Katie can’t tell which one cooked a dish.

Favourite dish
Linguine with sea urchin

Favourite place in Italy
Ortigia, Sicily – it is a beautiful island, full of art, beautiful architecture and great food.

Which 3 dinner guests would you invite to a fantasy dinner party
The late Queen Elizabeth II, Jimmy Carr and Flavio Caldesi.