“People are calling the restaurant just to congratulate me. Others ask if terre-amisu is on the menu. »

Luca Cianciulli deserved his Father’s Day after measuring the extent of the power of television. Quebec now knows that it is the big winner of the Chefs! : the confrontation – and that he made the best reinvented tiramisu that Normand Laprise has ever eaten! –, while he and his loved ones have kept the secret of his victory since filming ended three months ago. “It was so much fun watching the show with my friends who didn’t know what was going to happen,” says Luca, father of two.

The Chefs candidates! fight stress on screen that would be unbearable for many people. However, they also experience great emotions away from the cameras.

Luca and his partner Maxime welcomed their son Paco a week after the final was made. “Everything ended up going well and it was stimulating to support Luca, especially for the menu for the final [Editor’s note: which included his famous terre-amisu],” says Maxime, seated Wednesday morning at their Moccione restaurant with Paco in the arm while Luca was in the kitchen with a fridge repairman.

Maxime was more than halfway through her pregnancy when the head researcher of Chefs! asked Luca to take part in a competition that brought together candidates from the previous 12 seasons. “It was during the rush a month before Christmas,” he recalls. “I didn’t say yes right away, but I really wanted to do it.”

Luca consulted his beloved and their partners, his brother Giancarlo Cianciulli and Gabriel Bisson. There was more to lose than to gain, but the desire to relive the adrenaline of the Chefs! was too strong.

In two weeks, the family will fly to Italy, near Naples, in the village of Calabritto, to present the youngest to Luca’s paternal grandmother, with whom he spent part of his summers as a child. His nonna and his late grandfather were market gardeners, winegrowers and olive oil producers.

Luca also cooked a lot with his maternal grandmother, also of Italian origin, who had a huge garden – with vines and chickens – in her backyard in Montreal North.

When he was young, Luca was passionate about soccer and had ideas in his head, like excavating an in-ground swimming pool in his parents’ backyard! He was determined and rather “snotty”, hence the name of his restaurants, moccione, which means “brat” in Italian.

The first restaurant Luca worked at, in Boucherville, was called L’Eggsotique (a name that people confused with that of a strip club!). Before serving lunch to 200 people, he had to get up at 5 a.m. “I realized in hindsight that my boss Gilles inspired me a lot. After two years, I was less motivated and he told me: ‘Luca, you don’t have to stay and you can leave.’ It hurt my pride, but he was right.”

It was there that Luca enrolled at the Institute of Tourism and Hospitality of Quebec (ITHQ) where Pasquale Vari taught him. His future judge at the Chefs! taught him – sometimes the hard way – what professional rigor is in a kitchen.

During his training, Luca did two internships in Italy. A first more dolce vita in a pizzeria and a second rather spartan in a Michelin-starred restaurant, La Parolina, with chef Iside de Cesare. “I learned more high-end, gourmet techniques and how to make fresh pasta to perfection. »

At 20 years old, Luca was the youngest of the squad when he took part in the second season of Chefs!. He was eliminated in the second round, but Normand Laprise saw his potential and hired him six months later in his kitchen.

It’s at Toqué! that Luca met Maxime, also an ITHQ graduate. It was a dream for her to be involved there. Luca would resign three months later, after six years of loyal service. Love spoke and she followed him on a road trip to the United States.

Luca, who created menus at age 7, always cherished the dream of having HIS restaurant. The opportunity presented itself when a premises on Rue Villeray became available in 2018. As soon as it opened, the neighborhood adopted Moccione, which allowed its gang to get through the pandemic. Since then, the original Moccione has become a pizzeria and the signature restaurant has been reborn at the corner of Saint-Denis and Faillon streets.

The Moccione family has 40 employees, many of them long-term. “I am proud of the family atmosphere we have created and the healthy work environment,” explains Luca. Customers feel like they are coming into our home. »

Cooking is a clan affair and significant encounters for the one who still pinches himself for having made the final with his “brother” Guillaume Couture. Luca can’t wait to visit the Chefs’ mentor! Colombe Saint-Pierre, at Bic. And without Maxime, who specializes in desserts, he probably would not have had the idea of ​​pouring coffee over mushrooms, and the word of the week in Quebec would not have been terre-amisu.