by Ebony L. Morman

When chef Gabriele Grigolon’s guests report that they feel like they’ve been transported to Italy, he considers it the best compliment. It’s one of his goals when diners experience an afternoon or evening at Aqua e Vino. It’s also why he aims to create distinct and new food experiences for guests that are heavily inspired by his roots. 

The Italian chef opened Aqua e Vino in 2015 after spending a decade as executive chef for  Charlotte-based Conte Restaurant Group (Luce, Mezzanotte, Toscana, and Via Roma). Before relocating to Charlotte in 2005, Grigolon held similar roles at esteemed European restaurants and at New Jersey-based Terra Momo Restaurant Group, which at that time included six restaurants and a bakery. 

Last November, Grigolon expanded Aqua e Vino to include the addition of a second dining room and bar seating, making it a bit more accessible to restaurant-goers by adding 26 more seats. 

Unpretentious Palate: When did you fall in love with food? 
Gabriele Grigolon: I went to culinary school when I just turned 14. After middle school in Italy, you go to a professional school to learn a trade that’s in a professional school so I went there and graduated before I was 17. But when you’re in culinary school in Italy, the instructors tell you to go to work in the summertime so you have training. I was lucky because somebody who went to the culinary school in that town was interested in making pastry and everybody, from the principal to the professors, said one name. The only person that was interested in and was good at pastry was me. He was in touch with me and he called me just after my birthday. I went to a meeting and he said he was going to open a pastry place and he needed somebody to work and I could start there. 

UP: What inspired you to open your own restaurant?
GG: I was always looking to be independent. I was very lucky in my life that most of the experience I had was with very brand new establishments or very famous establishments that were already two-star Michelin restaurants. I worked at these places for years and when I moved to Monte Carlo, I worked at [Hotel de Paris, Harry’s Bar and Il Novecento] but I always wanted to learn a little bit more. So I vacationed in the United States in 1995 to visit New York and it was a dream. When I got back, I said ‘I have to find a way to get to the United States.’ 

UP: What was the initial vision for Aqua e Vino? 
GG: I had been exposed to different types of cuisine from French, Spanish, and Nuevo Latino cuisine. So when I came here in Charlotte, the idea was to find something small for me. But it didn’t work out that way. I was executive chef for Conte Restaurant Group, but I was too tired working for someone else. When I opened this restaurant it was very small. I was trying to do my cuisine. There was a lot to mix between Italian, French, and Spanish. People would come and ask if I could make a nice fettuccine alfredo or chicken parmesan and I would think that’s not real Italian food, it’s Italian American food. That made me a little bit mad. And for years, people would say other restaurants had the best Italian food in the city and no one was talking about Aqua e Vino. So one day, I woke up and I told my wife that now I’m going to do something different. I wanted to really do Italian food 100 percent. I even changed my wine list, making it 99% Italian. I have a few recipes from when I was living in the south of France because they’re almost Italian. But that’s when I started doing original Italian food that a lot of people have never been exposed to. 

UP: How do you source your ingredients? 
GG: I’m lucky because I work with farmers but I’m not closed-minded. I can have a vendor from the West Coast or up north. I try to get dry good ingredients, cured meats, cheeses, flour, and rice from Italy. You can find local farmers and they grow vegetables and have meats here and you can play with that because Italian food is very simple. It’s about herbs and the way you use them. I make the real food I had when I grew up. And I’m very lucky for the clients I have, they travel a lot and they’ve been in Europe. When they come to us they say, ‘I was in Italy but I don’t have to travel to Italy to get Italian food, I can come here.’ That is the best compliment.

UP: How is Aqua e Vino’s menu inspired by the food you grew up with? 
GG: It’s very seasonal. Every month I change the menu but it can have a couple changes during that month because you have to be very seasonal and sometimes if you go by what Mother Nature gives to you, maybe you have a very good week and you have a good ingredient and maybe next week [a farmer] doesn’t have it. So we can change things. All the pasta we make here and we have a few dishes that are the signature dishes. There’s a pasta dish, tajarin (fresh spaghettini, prosciutto di parma, and parmigiano fondue) with no by-products. We use a very Italian prosciutto di Parma and it’s bone-in. We slice it by hand with a knife and when you cannot slice it anymore, we take the rest of the meat, grind it and saute it and mix it with the  parmigiano cheese. We make pasta with a prosciutto and parmigiano fondue and that’s one of the dishes we started on day one. It’s a concept of Italian cuisine. You have one ingredient and you have a part you can’t use anymore so you find a way to use the rest. 

UP: How has the recent space expansion impacted business? 
GG: We can now seat 56 people comfortably, before it was 30. We have a dining room and a bar that seats six. We are blessed because each weekend we turn away so many people. By next January, I want to do another renovation because I want to go back to the real Italian way of having a restaurant like in Italy or in Europe. The idea is to go old fashion and have more interaction with the customers and more tableside service. I want to go back to my memory and what I learned in culinary school and the way it was done then. 

UP: What keeps people coming back to Aqua e Vino? 
GG: It’s not a cookie-cutter type of restaurant. Most people in the restaurant business don’t have the heart and soul and clients are just a number. Here, they are not just a number. I know a lot of my clientele by name and people are treated like people when they come here. We hug, I give them a kiss, we joke. You cannot come here and see the same menu. I do real food. Sometimes I’ll go to the table and ask, ‘Why are you eating with the fork and knife? Take the piece of meat and eat it with your fingers. Don’t worry.’ That’s the way it’s supposed to be done. I try to be very real. I have a few customers say, ‘Yeah we like to come here, the food is great but we like to be abused by the chef.’