Chef Stefano Frigerio, a veteran of Washington’s fine dining Italian scene, has been tapped as the new executive chef at Fiola. The Lake Como, Italy, native first cooked with chef/owner Fabio Trabocchi in 1997 when the two were young cooks in London, and helped open two notable Italian restaurants together.* They rejoined forces in 2002 at the much-lauded Maestro at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner. After the fine dining room closed, Frigerio took the lead role at Mio (then Mediterranean), and also founded his own business, the Copper Pot Food Co., selling homemade pastas, sauces, and preserves at local farmer’s markets and shops. Most recently he’s worked as a corporate executive chef at Arnold & Porter law firm while helping raise his young children.
Now Frigerio is back on the line at Trabocchi’s first restaurant, taking over from Michael Maksimowicz. He joins fellow executive chefs Brinn Sinnott (Fiola Mare) and Erin Clarke (Casa Luca) in Trabocchi’s growing empire.
* This post has been updated from an earlier version.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
