Doppio Zero's chef/partner Jake Addeo has been surrounded by food since his infancy, born into a Long Island family with a restaurant and duck farming pedigree. So it's no surprise he developed aspirations to be a chef, with an eye to launching his own venture.
Quickly learning his trade at some of the most illustrious kitchens in Manhattan (Felidia, Mario Batali's Esca, and Abboccato, where he was executive chef), Addeo was ready to establish his own restaurant. But when the city was hit by the 2008 financial crisis, a friend nudged Addeo to become the opening chef for Laurent Tourondel's BLT burger and steakhouse in Asia. The 39-year-old cooked for the owners and got the job on the spot.
Addeo moved here in 2009 to open the restaurants, but his tenure with the franchisee, Dining Concepts, was short-lived, as his true passion to run an Italian establishment took over.
Meanwhile, entrepreneur Kevin Shih Jen-hwa was hunting for a chef in New York for an Italian concept in Hong Kong. Abbocatto's owner told Shih there was already a fine Italian chef in Hong Kong he must meet. Addeo and Shih clicked, having a similar Italian restaurant concept in mind, and the partners opened pasta-centric Doppio Zero last year in Sheung Wan.
So you're from a duck farming family ... I'm from Long Island, which is known for its ducks. It was the gold standard for ducks throughout the US in the 1980s and '90s. My family's business, Vigliotta Farms, started a duck farm in the '50s, then another and another. At one point, they had four. Over time, the farms were bought out by wineries, which were paying millions to get as much land as they could.
So you were around ducks throughout your childhood ...
As a kid, I'd run through millions of ducks just to scare them, and they would spread all over the place. We ate a lot of duck, which wasn't a bad thing. We sold ducks to great restaurants, too, so we'd go there to try the product. My dad would send my cousin and me - just 12 years old at the time - to this classy restaurant all by ourselves. He'd call ahead to make sure we were taken care of. The chef would come out and carve the duck in front of us; we felt like such big shots. This was at the Blue Marlin, which was in [Montauk], the same town as where my family's restaurant was at the time.