Gabriele Bertaccini (born 18 December 1985) is an Italian chef, television personality, and writer. He is known for his role as the food expert on the

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

series ''

Say I Do ''Say I Do'' is an American reality television series developed by Scout Productions for Netflix. Each episode features a team of three professionals, Jeremiah Brent in the field of design, Thai Nguyen in the field of fashion, and Gabriele Ber ...

''.

Life and career

Bertaccini was born and raised in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

to a Mormon Italian family. He learned to cook at the age of 13, training at the Bernardo Buontalenti Institute of Culinary Arts and Management in regional

Italian cuisine Italian cuisine (, ) is a Mediterranean cuisine#CITEREFDavid1988, David 1988, Introduction, pp.101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes and List of cooking techniques, cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula and late ...

with a speciality in Tuscan cuisine as well as in food and beverage management. He then worked at several restaurants and hotels such as Ristorante Sabatini, Grand Hotel Baglioni, and Hotel Astoria and was named head chef at boutique restaurant Conquinarius. He moved to the United States where he studied journalism and PR at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

. Bertaccini founded his first catering company, il TOCCO FOOD, in 2008. His second catering company, Culinary Mischief, is dedicated to invitation only experiences, and his third, the NFFICIAL, was founded in 2015. He was a food and wine columnist for the local ''Green Living Magazine''. In 2019, he became one of the hosts and the food expert on the

reality series ''

''.

Personal life

Bertaccini is based in Venice, Los Angeles with his four Australian Shepards. He is openly gay. In the first episode of ''Say I Do'', he revealed he is

HIV-positive The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immun ...

References

External links

Official website
* Living people 1985 births Arizona State University alumni Gay entertainers Italian chefs Italian emigrants to the United States Italian food writers Italian television chefs Italian television personalities Italian gay men Mass media people from Florence People with HIV/AIDS {{Italy-bio-stub