Agostino Gabriele & Vincenzo’s

Agostino Gabriele was born in 1949 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy and at age 14, he was hired as kitchen help at Rosticceria Domore in Palermo. For the next four years, he trained under European and Italian chefs in several fine restaurants and at 18, operated a resort restaurant, Desire, for one season.

In 1969, he came to St. Louis, Missouri to work at his uncle’s restaurant, for two years before returning to Europe to gain more experience at the Park Hotel in Düsseldorf, Germany, followed by a year at The Secondo Matteo restaurant in Milan, Italy.  Upon returning to St. Louis in 1974, he worked with his brother, Giovanni, at Giovanni’s on the Hill for a year.  In 1975, he opened his own little restaurant christened Agostino’s Little Place, with just nine tables. It was voted one of the top six restaurants in St. Louis, and received the Best Restaurant Award for 8 consecutive years from 1977-1985.

In 1985, Agostino and his brother, Vincent, were approached about assuming the lease at Humana, for the restaurant and catering facilities inside their corporate headquarters.  Humana was Louisville’s largest medical insurance operator and is located on the Ohio River in downtown Louisville.  The Gabriele brothers merged, signed the lease, and on June 16, 1986, Vincenzo’s Restaurant began operations.  Ten years later, in May of 1996, the Great Chefs television team showed up to tape Chef Agostino Gabriele for the Discovery Channel’s Great Chefs of America television series.

Today, August 2016, over 20 years later, Chef Agostino is still running the kitchen of Vincenzo’s in Louisville.