Gabriele Franco

Gabriele Franco grew up in Carlentini, a country town near Siracusa where you know where your oranges come from and who picked them. His mother and grandmother cooked every day, without written recipes. “I watched, then I stole, then I helped,” he told La Sicilia. His father wanted him on the building site with him; the smell of his grandmother's kitchen won. He started at eleven, in the town's bars and the Fuccio pastry shop, and at fourteen he was in the kitchen at Borgo Nocchiara.

After hotel school in Lentini, stages across Italy and six years with the Licata group, Gabriele joined MSC Cruise Ships — a defining chapter that took him from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Cooking for thousands, managing kitchen brigades, adapting Italian cuisine for the world. It was exhausting, exhilarating, and transformative.

In 2017, he arrived in Sydney. The Inner West immediately felt like home — the tight community, the Italian heritage, the quality of produce. After years with Navarra Venues he came to La Botte D'Oro, on Marion Street since 1977, first as a consultant chef, and then took it over. Under him it has been named Best Restaurant Pizzeria at the Inner West Local Business Awards and an OpenTable Diners' Choice.