Other than enjoying expert service and premium ingredients, one of the great things about dining at a Four Seasons Hotel restaurant is that one benefits from the wealth of experience their chefs bring to the kitchen. Marco Fossati, the new executive chef at Quattro at East Palo Alto’s Four Seasons Hotel, has a particularly deep résumé. Born in Portofino, Italy, Fossati grew up in a family of great cooks. His great-great-grandfather was the chef of the cruise ship Michelangelo and may have started the family’s love affair with food.

As a young man Fossati quit college to pursue his passion for food. Cooking took him all over Italy, to London where he cooked for the royal family and other celebrities at a private club, to Berlin, to Hong Kong and to his last stint at Four Seasons Sharm El Sheikh Resort in Egypt. Although Italian cuisine is what he loves most, all that globetrotting has rubbed off on him. 

“You never stop learning as a chef,” he says. “That’s what makes this job so exciting.”

Being back in Silicon Valley, he loves the access he has to great products and ingredients.

“If you have fresh product 60 percent of your job is done,” he says in his rolling Italian accent. “The dish should speak for itself.”

Fossati worked at Quattro several years ago as chef de cuisine but now he’s running the show. The California-inspired Italian menu has been simplified a bit to showcase his straightforward approach to cooking.

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