Cesare Casella is an acclaimed restaurateur, consultant, author and educator based in New York. He is best known as the chef with the rosemary — rarely without a small bouquet springing from his jacket pocket, representing his childhood in the Tuscan countryside where rosemary grew wild and his family ran a small trattoria, Vipore, outside of Lucca.

Growing up in Tuscany, one of Casella’s jobs was helping make the country-cured meats his family restaurant was famous for, and when he got older, he would help the norcini, the old-school butchers who traveled from farmer to farmer each winter, prepare the prosciutti. Today, as the prosciutto whisperer, he uses those Italian techniques to create cured-on-the-bone prosciutti. Casella is committed to helping people understand that Italian culture is defined by its history and its most basic components – much like how Italian cuisine is defined by the ingredients from which a dish derives.