David Ruggerio (born Sabatino Antonino Gambino; June 26, 1962, in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

) is an American chef, author, and television personality. Son of Saverio Erasmo Gambino and Constance Lazzarino, he became famous in the food world during the 1990s. Ruggerio honed his culinary skills in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

at several of the country's leading restaurants, among them, the Hôtel Le Negresco with ;

Moulin de Mougins The Moulin de Mougins is a celebrated restaurant in France, situated in a 16th-century mill (''moulin'') in the inland French Riviera town of Mougins. Founding chef Roger Vergé made the restaurant's name renowned with his novel and light ''Cuis ...

with

Roger Vergé Roger Vergé (; 7 April 1930 – 5 June 2015) was a French chef and restaurateur. He is considered one of the greatest chefs of his time. The Gault Millau described him as "the very incarnation of the great French chef for foreigners". Personal ...

;

L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges (), also known as Paul Bocuse () or simply Bocuse, is a restaurant in the town of Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or north of Lyon, France. Its chef was Paul Bocuse Paul François Pierre Bocuse (; 11 February 1926 – 20 Jan ...

with

Paul Bocuse Paul François Pierre Bocuse (; 11 February 1926 – 20 January 2018) was a French chef based in Lyon known for the quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. Dubbed "the pope of gastronomy", he was affectionately nick ...

and Les Prés d'Eugénie with

Michel Guérard Michel Robert-Guérard (; 27 March 1933 – 19 August 2024), known as Michel Guérard, was a French chef, author, one of the founders of '' nouvelle cuisine'' and the inventor of '' cuisine minceur''. Early life and education Michel Guérard w ...

Biography

His rise to fame began as the chef at the legendary New York eatery, La Caravelle at age twenty-five. At the same time, Ruggerio was a part of the crew of Gambino capo Carmine Lombardozzi, known as the "King of Wall Street" for his stock

pump and dump Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements (pump), in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price (dump). O ...

schemes. Lombardozzi had a rule that all his crew had to take legitimate day jobs to deter suspicion from law enforcement, which led to Ruggerio taking a job in the kitchen at La Caravelle, then one of the top French restaurants in the city. He went on to take command of Pierre Cardin's New York outpost of

Maxim's de Paris Maxim's () is a restaurant in Paris, France, located at No. 3 Rue Royale in the 8th arrondissement. It is known for its Art Nouveau interior decor. In the mid 20th century, Maxim's was regarded as the most famous restaurant in the world. His ...

where he garnered three stars from the New York Times. He then took his talents to the iconic

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a boulevard in New York City that carries north and southbound traffic in the borough (New York City), boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the wes ...

restaurant, Le Chantilly. Here he gained national acclaim by again receiving three stars from the New York Times and being lauded over in an article by legendary writer

Gael Greene Gael Greene (December 22, 1933 – November 1, 2022) was an American restaurant critic, author, and novelist. She became '' New York'' magazine's restaurant critic in fall 1968, at a time when most New Yorkers were unsophisticated about food and ...

entitled "Miracle on 57th Street". In a 2022 Vanity Fair interview, Ruggerio claimed that from an early age, he was an active member of the Gambino crime family, taking part in various crimes such as extortion,

loan-sharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high or illegal interest rates, has strict terms of collection, and generally operates outside the law, often using the threat of violence or other illegal, aggressive, and extortionate ...

, truck hijacking, bookmaking, heroin dealing, and murder. Ruggerio said that in March 1978, he helped Onorato torture and murder a 56-year-old Genovese and Colombo associate named Pasquale 'Paddy Mac' Macchirole at a tire repair garage in Yonkers, New York. They left Macchirole's corpse in a car trunk in Brooklyn. Contemporary reporting confirms that police found Macchirole's body in March 1978. "The body of a reputed organized-crime figure, once accused of extorting money from a prominent Queens nightclub owner who was later murdered, was found stuffed in the trunk of a rented car early yesterday in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn." March 24, 1978 NYT.

Media personality

Ruggerio starred in a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

cooking series entitled, "Little Italy with David Ruggerio." He later went on to star in his own series on

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery, who manages and operates it as a division of the Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks Group. The channel airs both televi ...

entitled, "Ruggerio to Go."

Legal history

On November 3, 1998, David Ruggerio was charged with stealing $190,000 from a credit card company by falsifying credit card receipts for payment, in one case by as much as $30,000. He falsified credit card payments by inflating the gratuities left by 26 customers at his restaurant. On March 12, 1999, he admitted to the charges and paid more than $100,000 in restitution to a credit card company, spent five years on probation and performed 500 hours of community service. Due to this, Food Network debated keeping his show on the air, but eventually decided to cancel it. The network had produced dozens of episodes and spent a small fortune to market it. Ruggerio subsequently attempted to work in the culinary industry again. On March 24, 2022, in a Vanity Fair article, Ruggerio claimed to have been an active member of Gambino crime family from 1977 to 2014.

Bibliography

* * *Ruggerio, David (2019).
David Ruggerio's A Wistful Tale of Gods, Men, and Monsters
'' Black Rose Writing. . * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruggerio, David Living people American cookbook writers American people of Italian descent American restaurateurs American television chefs American male chefs Businesspeople from New York City Writers from Brooklyn 1962 births