Todd Villani

Vesta Wood Fired
Participating Events
7:00 PM - 10:00 PM Saturday, May 2

After making a name for himself as a trailblazer in New Jersey’s farm-to-table movement, Chef Todd Villani is charting a new path on the culinary scene. As Executive Chef of East Rutherford’s Vesta Wood Fired, Chef Villani is taking the best of the region’s locally sourced foods and preparing them over and in a Wood-Fired charbroiler and hearth. Chef marries seasonal ingredients with wood-fired heat to create distinctive flavors. This old-world method of cooking builds on Chef Villani’s culinary repertoire, blending his farm-to-table ethos and appreciation for simple fresh ingredients with French and Italian technique and exotic flavors that inspired his passion for food.

He acquired his eclectic palate through a diverse food journey that began with waiting tables from coast to coast – from some of the finest steak houses to fish restaurants on the strip in Miami, accumulating along the way an appreciation for various cuisines, authentic ingredients, and techniques that truly define a culture. His journey took him to Greece and some of Europe’s finest dining establishments and back to the U.S. where he worked at World Yacht, a subsidiary venture of acclaimed “Top Chef” Marcus Samuelsson where he gained an appreciation for Scandinavian-inspired cuisine which includes pickling and curing. These experiences – and his newest foray into wood fired cooking – build on his signature approach to preparing foods with an international flair.