ABOUT YOUR CHEF

Chef Johnny Carino, who is globally recognized, was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a deep-rooted Italian family. 

As a young boy, Johnny would sit up on a stool, watching and learning from his Sicilian-born grandparents.  It was here that Johnny knew he was starting his love for food and celebration.

During his high-school days, Johnny enrolled in a vocational food service school, and upon graduation Johnny was accepted into Johnson and Wales University where he graduated with his Associate's Degree in Culinary Arts at seventeen years old.

Johnny climbed the ladder to success quickly. As a young chef in San Francisco, Johnny received his first big chef position, being named as the Chef De Cuisine of City Scape Restaurant,  located on the 46th floor of the Hilton Towers.

In 1992, Johnny was highly recruited as the first Executive Chef of a very exclusive private club in Sacramento, California. It was here that his career as an Executive Chef would begin.

In January 1994 Johnny was hired on as a Corporate Chef for the Italian division Brinker Internation in Dallas, Texas. He would never look back. 

Ten months into his tenure with Brinker International, where his menu development and culinary leadership resulted in sales and guest counts greatly increasing, Johnny was taken aside by the executives of the company and offered an opportunity of a lifetime.

This opportunity would launch in December 1994 in Fort Collins, Colorado, where the first Johnny Carinos opened to rave reviews and a very busy restaurant.

The Kona Restaurant Group was formed with Johnny and a few Brinker executives. As a restaurant group, Kona Group would rename twelve restaurants under the Italian brand to Johnny Carino's.

Johnny's successful career has included opening and training staff in Italian restaurants around the world. Johnny has been a part of developing new restaurant concepts for companies and his own company. 

In 2002 Johnny was offered the opportunity to launch what would become a seven-year top-rated  PBS cooking show named “Break Me Off a Piece of That”.

Johnny has been featured on television, in magazines, newspapers, and publications, and is well known as a lover of rescue animals. 

Today, Johnny, resides in beautiful St. Simons Island, Georgia, with his five rescue pets.