After years of honing his craft in kitchens around the world, Gabriele Di Marco is confident in his skills.

It shows as Di Marco, executive chef at Oretta and our latest Canadian Pizza Chef of the Year gestures around his elegant surroundings on Yonge Street in midtown Toronto – surroundings that even on a dark day in November are flooded with light.

Picture this: November 2024. It’s a month before Christmas and Oretta is about to launch its holiday menu. Fresh floral vine decorated with pink, white and silver garlands and decorations adorns the entrance off Yonge Street. It is time for aperitivo, or small bites – a popular afternoon tradition at Oretta. It’s all very inviting and in keeping with the restaurant’s priority of freshness. After our talk we take photos in the glassed-in patio dubbed “Giardino della herbes” (the herb garden). The restaurant has been open for three years and may best be described as art deco meets historic Italian architecture, with curved banquettes, marble countertops bold artwork.

Salvatore Mele, principal at Oretta Hospitality Inc., is the entrepreneur behind this stylish and growing brand, which opened in 2017 in Toronto’s King West area with an exclusively Italian menu featuring classics representing various regions of Italy made using high-quality ingredients. It now boasts two more locations – Oretta Caffé, which serves espresso coffees, in-house prepared artisanal baked goods, focaccia, and panini and adjacent the main King Street restaurant, and the midtown spot where we sit for a conversation about excellence and Sicilian cuisine.

Memories of Sicily

Born and raised in Sicily, Di Marco has been in Canada for 16 years. He built his skills working at fine-dining restaurants, including as chef de partie at Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino on Vancouver Island, and as sous chef at Nota Bene in Toronto.

As the story goes, he met Mele through mutual connections among suppliers, he recalls devising a six-part tasting menu of Italian specialities while working as head chef at Mele’s Capocaccio Trattoria at Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue seven years ago, which led to his promotion to executive chef in June 2018.

Di Marco has built a successful career through hard work and dedication to shining a light on his home region of Sicily.” In Sicily, it was all about food, family and respect,” he says. “My grandmother and mother were at home and every day and the family ate lunch and dinner together. There is nothing more important than sitting at a table with your loved ones,” says the proud Sicilian, who has three kids himself.

They had what he describes as a “house in the countryside.” When he was 11 years old, he used to cook for 16 friends from school and learned how to a 78-year-old friend how to forage for mushrooms.

While cooking came naturally to Di Marco, after graduating from high school he got a taste of gruelling outdoor labour while working in the forest rising at 4 a.m. and carrying logs for up to two kilometres to be used for making cork.

Before coming to Canada, he worked at an Italian restaurant in Australia and at a restaurant in Thailand.

Di Marco’s goal is to tell a story through authentic food made in the tradition of Sicily. In his view, “If you don’t make a memory with the food you make, how can you serve people?”

Winning pizza

Before bringing his pizza to the Toronto Pizza Summit, Di Marco tested it three or four times with help and feedback from his pal chef de cuisine Denis George of Capocaccia. No doubt his meticulous attention to detail helped him win over the judges.

He describes his pizza as more durable due in part to the double-zero flour and high percentage of semolina that gives pizza more structure. In terms of flavour, he says, “I wanted something simple that screams Italy.”

It included San Marzano tomatoes, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella “for a richness. The star of this pizza is the anchovy: Di Marco used two different kinds to balance each other: salty Sicilian and sweet Cantabrico.

The enthusiastic chef returns to Sicily every summer from June to August. He gets wild oregano, which he bakes, freezes and takes back to Canada. “It keeps well,” he says.

“When I cook, I’m trying to bring back memories of Italy,” he says. “My goal is to take my guests to Italy without flying,” he says with a well-practised flourish.

The ingredients are important but great food must have something extra, he says. “You can’t teach love for food and positive attitude.”

Learning curve

“When I became a chef in Vancouver, in Toronto, I staged all day,” he says, referring to the practice of unpaid internship taken to learn new techniques and build industry connections. He would take on task after task without complaint. He would work a shift from 2 p.m. to midnight, sleep, then work from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. His parents saved up money to pay for his trips home to visit.

While Di Marco recognizes the important role of college culinary programs, he calls this real-world experience priceless. Some graduates of college programs immediately choose jobs that pay the most money possible. Di Marco sees an alternative in which education, and not just money, is the motivation: “You can choose the quick way. Or, you can work in a good restaurant where you can learn discipline, and maybe learn to run your own restaurant one day.”

Of course, you need to make a living. In Di Marco’s case, he paid his dues, and after some time, he realized his own worth. He recalls asking for $14 an hour and expecting resistance, only to find that the prospective employer offered to pay him $17. “I was ready to upend a table if they refused my request,” he says with a laugh.

Transition to manager

After years cooking and baking in multiple fast-paced kitchens, what’s it like managing staff. In each of their three kitchens, they have approximately 65 people. Altogether there are about 250 employees, including managers.

“I used to push people, it was the kitchen culture. Was it right? Not really,” he says thoughtfully.

“As a manager, I try to listen to everyone. I let them learn, push them to get better. I am meticulous. The cleaner your station is, the better the food will be.”

Di Marco keeps a list of lessons he has learned: good and bad. “You become like a psychologist. You can’t treat everyone the same. You learn with time and patience.”

While the work has not been easy over the years, he is proud of his role as executive chef and feels a sense of ownership in Oretta. This helps him to make daily decisions. “Anything you do, I always take a break and ask myself, what would I do if it was my own restaurant?”

As for Oretta, plans are underway to open a fourth location downtown near Toronto Lake Ontario harbour at Simcoe and Front streets. Di Marco is excited about the expansion, but he has wisely added maintaining a work-life balance to his list of lessons. “I have what I need. Now I’m learning to take care of myself.”