Julian Niccolini is an Italian-American

restaurateur A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspec ...

who co-owned the now defunct

Four Seasons Restaurant The Four Seasons Restaurant (known colloquially as the Four Seasons) was a New American cuisine restaurant in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City from 1959 to 2019. The Four Seasons operated within the Seagram Building at 99 Ea ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Early life

Niccolini was born in

Lucca, Italy Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one o ...

. One of his early jobs was at the

Hotel de Paris A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

. Niccolini moved to New York City in 1975.

Career

Niccolini joined the Four Seasons Restaurant in 1977 and quickly became its public face. In 1994, he and Alex von Bidder became its primary operating partners. Niccolini created a club-like dining room at the restaurant named the "Grill Room", where patrons conducted business during lunch, although he remarked that “everybody n the roomclaims to be serious, but they are actually having fun.” Niccolini was forced to resign from the Four Seasons Restaurant in December 2018 over accusations of sexual misconduct. Niccolini has been nominated for seven

James Beard Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

s, winning three. He has also had parts in several movies, including ''

Inside Man ''Inside Man'' is a 2006 American heist thriller film directed by Spike Lee and written by Russell Gewirtz. It centers on an elaborate bank heist on Wall Street over a 24-hour period. The film stars Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazi ...

'' (2006), ''

Arbitrage In economics and finance, arbitrage (, ) is the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in two or more markets; striking a combination of matching deals to capitalise on the difference, the profit being the difference between the ...

'' (2012) and ''

Self/less ''Self/less'' is a 2015 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Tarsem Singh, produced by Ram Bergman and James D. Stern and written by Alex and David Pastor. The film tells the story of a business tycoon and billionaire named D ...

'' (2015).

Personal life

Niccolini is an avid cyclist and dog lover. He practiced

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most-commonly-kept species but other honey-producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless bees are also kept. ...

at his home in Bedford, New York. In June 2015, Niccolini was charged with the

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

of a 28-year-old woman at the Four Seasons Restaurant. In March 2016, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor

assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

, admitting that he had "put his hands on the woman, causing scratches and bruises to her hip and thigh".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niccolini, Julian American restaurateurs Italian restaurateurs Living people People from Lucca Year of birth missing (living people)