Chef Jim Leonardo

Chef Jim Leonardo was raised in Boston Massachusetts with an Irish mother and Italian father. “My mom's cooking was the first experience I had with ‘fusion cuisine',” he jokes. His two older brothers were aspiring chefs and so he followed in their footsteps working in area restaurants from the time he was 15 years old.

A formal apprenticeship of Boston 's five-star Aujourd'hui restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel led him to Europe for a year of work/study in various Michelin starred restaurants. “I had read Marco Pierre White's first book called White Heat and it inspired me at a very impressionable age.” The year abroad was what Chef Leonardo calls a “total cultural immersion”. “I didn't get paid at all for a lot of these jobs. It was for the experience alone. I made money when I could and sometimes the restaurants had a place to stay. It was a fairly tenuous situation at times but it really opened my eyes”. The excursion culminated with a staggiere position at White's eponymous restaurant in London.

Returning home with a taste for travel and great food, he began a career path that crisscrossed the country from “Harvest” in Cambridge, Massachusetts to “The Painted Table” in Seattle Washington to New York 's “Monkey Bar” and back to New England. Then on Nantucket Island, the chef learned about an opportunity for year long personal Chef position aboard a 150 foot mega yacht “Cacique” berthed in Palm Beach Florida.

Aboard the Cacique, Chef Leonardo further immersed himself in European culture, sharpening his craft, plying the mediterranean from the Spanish Baleric Islands through the Italian & French Riveras. Then he traveled to the Cote d'Azure and Amalfi coast, with exotic ports of call in Malta, isles of Greece and Turkey.

These culinary experiences and challenges helped chef Jim formulate his philosophy of “spontaneous cuisine.” Chef Leonardo's breadth of experience allows him to instinctively create dishes that take advantage of not only the abundant local produce but also the energy of the great people with whom he works everyday. “I never hesitate to let a dish evolve because the conditions of the moment are ever changing and everyone is involved when we improvise.”

The idea of spontaneous cuisine is like culinary jazz. Where the rules of cooking thoroughly understood can be broken without ruining the dish. It is said that in the kitchen one has to learn a lot to know a little and chef Leonardo subscribes fully to that premise. Chef Jim was hired to open the City Cellar Wine Bar and restaurant in Birmingham, MI and chose to permanently relocate because of the similarities he found in Michigan to his native New England. After positions at Northville's NOMI and Detroit 's MOSAIC Chef Leonardo finally arrived at Vinology.

After meeting extensively with the owners John and Kristin Jonna chef Leonardo was excited to impart a new dimension of wine pairing to his culinary expertise. Chef began at Vinology in December of 2009 and has created a synergy that personifies a great dining experience by mastering the art of food and wine pairing.