GABRIEL THOMPSON

As a child, Gabriel Thompson would spend hours in his grandfather’s Texas garden, picking cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and whatever else was growing each summer and then preparing it for his family’s dinner table.  It’s safe to say he’s moved on from simple summer salads, but the same honest, fresh and seasonal approach to food Gabriel showed when he visited his grandfather is on display at dell’anima.

Born in Vermont and raised in both California and Texas, Gabriel grew up around good food and regional specialty dishes.  His first kitchen job was as a 20-year-old line cook at Granite Café in Austin, Texas, where he was taken under the wing of chef Chris Lanier, who taught him the fundamentals of being a cook, including proper technique, a deeper understanding of the ingredients he prepared, and presentation.  Above all else, Lanier helped instill a chef’s work ethic in Gabriel, and it was while he was at Granite that Gabriel would decide to turn this job into his career.

Two years later, Gabriel enrolled in Le Chef Culinary School in Austin while still working at Granite.  After graduation, Gabriel traveled through Europe to experience different cultures, and found that in Italy, unlike other countries that he had visited, he enjoyed every meal – whether it came from a cart on the street or a fine-dining establishment. He attributed this to the Italian’s use of fresh and local ingredients and simplicity.

A few months later, Gabe returned to work in restaurants across the country to learn more about the seasonal and local movement, from Clarklewis in Portland, Oregon to The Little Nell in Aspen, Colorado, eventually returning to Austin. In Austin, he was soon reunited with Chris Lanier and worked as a sous chef at the acclaimed Emilia’s restaurant, where he rededicated himself to his craft and continued to challenge himself by try new techniques and working with new ingredients.

Three years later Gabriel moved to New York to accept the ultimate personal challenge – a position at Eric Ripert’s NY Times 4-Star seafood temple, Le Bernardin, where he learned all he could about fine dining in New York City. Although he loved the excitement of working with these world class chefs, he ultimately needed a change of pace, and soon took the next step in his culinary career at Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Del Posto. There he explored Italian cuisine with same sort of devotion he showed throughout his years in kitchens around the world, and did so on the grandest of stages.

It’s on a much smaller, much more intimate scale that he opens dell’anima, where he takes a lifetime of lessons in the kitchen – from selecting vegetables in his grandfather’s garden to making bucatini with Mario – and re-imagines them at this contemporary neighborhood Italian restaurant and wine bar.