Everyone loves a rags to riches story, and when it involves a remarkably gracious and generous person, that tale is all the more enjoyable.
That’s the narrative of Piero Selvaggio, an Italian emigrant born in Sicily in 1946 who changed the image of Italian wine and food in the United States in various ways, most prominently with his iconic Valentino restaurant in Santa Monica, California.
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Wine-Searcher recently spoke with Selvaggio about his incredible adventure over the last five-plus decades, covering a number of topics, from assembling a mind-boggling wine list to his favorite pairings of Italian food and wine to his latest project that will take him around the world.
Tell us about your early years.
I was born in Sicily in the town of Modica, in the province of Ragusa in the southeastern part of the island, about 50 kilometers from Siracusa. I was sent to boarding school most of my young life, and then at 16, we emigrated and ended up in beautiful Brooklyn, like all of the Italian-Americans.
I had an uncle Gianni in California in the restaurant business, who agreed to be my legal guardian. I took the bus, and in 1964, I arrived in Los Angeles. Uncle John was instrumental because he told me I could go to school and work as a busboy at night, and that's what I did for a few months until my English got a little bit better. I was 18 then.
So that was my curriculum and launch into this business that has been my life for 55 years. I went to college and did all of that, and at night, I worked in restaurants to support myself. I always ended up feeling that being with people, being in the hospitality industry was a way of being true. I was very excited every night.
How did the opening of Valentino restaurant come about?
After college, I was wondering what I was going to do, and with a friend in December 1972, we opened a teeny restaurant on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica that we called Valentino, like Rudolf Valentino, the famous movie star. It was a catchy name that was easy to remember in Hollywood, and more than anything had the name of a classic symbolism.
Tell us about the wine list at Valentino.
I never expected that in 1981, I would be selected as one of the 10 best wine lists in the country. At that time, my one-page wine list had become 25 pages; I had about 1200 selections. I was in love with California wines and I was already picking whatever best Italian wines that were coming to America. And of course, I loved to follow the big Bordeaux and Burgundies. I love Burgundy, like everybody else.
Eventually the list increased to 60 to 65 pages and Valentino was eventually considered the temple of wine, as all the winemakers made it a point to say, "we want to be on the altar". And the altar was the wine list of Valentino; they wanted to be represented.
You received multiple stellar reviews in 1993. Tell us about those.
Ruth Reichl who was the food critic for The New York Times at that time, wrote "in my estimation, by far the best Italian restaurant in the country is Valentino – the food, the wine, and Piero".
Right after harvest time, Wine Spectator wrote: "Of the 10 best Italian restaurants in the country, Valentino is like a Ferrari, kind of doubling in speed to anybody else passing by."
So this is to give the general idea how much we grew, and how important we were for both Italian wines and Italian food in this country. I am the one who was called The Maestro, because I believed in bringing the first truffles, the first mozzarella, the first burrata, the first great olive oil, and of course, the wines. So we were really at the top of our game in every sense.
You eventually closed Valentino in 2018; why?
I realized that Valentino was 46 years old, and I thought it was time to quit or make it a small restaurant, because it was a very big restaurant. I closed on December 31, 2018 and we served 320 dinners on closing night.
You continued your restaurant work in the Los Angeles area for another three years. But you now have an exciting new project, correct?
My next project will be director of operations of the restaurants of my best friend, Wolfgang Puck. Wolfgang has restaurants all over the world, and I will be his director of hospitality. He has lots of restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but also he has expanded to New York and Orlando, but mostly in the Middle East, where he has five restaurants from Singapore to Qatar to Istanbul. So I will be supervising all of the hospitality part of all of these restaurants, and will be on the road for nine months out of the year.
It's a little late for me to be going back into the restaurant industry as an owner, and so since I have this flattering opportunity from my friend, I will use my last years doing good work, experiencing all of the good things.
What are some underappreciated Italian wines you like?
Remember first of all, that I’m Sicilian and I'm very, very supportive of anything Sicilian. The evolution that I’ve seen goes with the wines from Etna. But I'm also fascinated to see what Campania has done, the whole area of the Amalfi coast and the hinterlands, where great new wines have been produced, and of course, Taurasi, the flagship.
There are other regions that are showing a great deal of improvement. Umbria, where Caprai has been doing very nice things with the Montefalco wines. Marche, the same way with Elena Velenosi and Bucci with their Verdicchio.
Finally, what are your dream pairings of Italian wine and food?
The most precious things that we have are white truffles, so I always have to say that white truffles and Barolo is a marriage made in heaven. That is what everybody else will tell you, but I have to concur and say that I am a big truffle fan, and have bought as much as $35,000 of truffles for a benefit; I’ve done a lot of crazy things!
So truffles have always been a big highlight in our restaurant, and you always think of Barolo and Barbaresco to go with that.
Then of course, I love prosciutto, so prosciutto and Lambrusco to me are another marriage in heaven. Then with pasta, I always think about a good, simple, nice Chianti from Castello di Ama, Antinori, or producers like that.
Then as we go south, I always like to pair something like an Etna Rosso, so a good Nerello Mascalese with my favorite pasta, which is pasta alla norma, which is a dish that originated in Catania that is little, small agnolini, which is small pasta, that is blended with ricotta cheese, olives, tomatoes and capers, and then it's finished like a timballo wrapped around fried eggplant and sprinkled with ricotta. Nerello Mascalese would be absolutely divine with that.
