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Who

The culinary emperor of the Upper West Side, Valenti is the chef behind the popular restaurants Ouest and Little Branch.

Backstory

Valenti got his start cooking for a pretty demanding client: He was the private chef to a batty Westchester multi-millionaire who insisted that Valenti wait 200 days before repeating any dish. He didn't put up with his boss's eccentricities for long; he left both the job and the country, moving to France to work at Guy Savoy's famed Parisian restaurant, even though he spoke no French at the time. Valenti later returned to New York to work as Alfred Portale's sous chef at Gotham Bar & Grill before taking a series of jobs at Cascabel in SoHo, Alison on Dominick, and Ken Aretsky's Butterfield 81. In 2002, he went out on his own, opening Ouest on the Upper West Side amid much hullabaloo. He followed it up with the rustic Italian restaurant 'Cesca in 2004.

Of note

Ouest was the first high-end restaurant to truly thrive on the Upper West Side; prior to its arrival, the region had been written off as a restaurant death zone. (Valenti's culinary/real estate feat earned him a New York cover story.) But while Valenti remains upper Broadway's dominant food personality, his footprint in the neighborhood isn't as large as it once was. He had a falling out with his 'Cesca partners over plans to open up an outpost in Atlantic City—the partners wanted to expand, Valenti didn't—and his partners eventually went forward without Valenti's participation. (With bad blood still lingering, in 2006 Valenti washed his hands of the New York City 'Cesca.) Nonetheless, Valenti returned to the Upper West Side food scene once again in 2008, opening up a 170-seat venue called West Branch on Broadway.

Pet cause

Following Sept. 11, Valenti set up Windows of Hope, an organization dedicated to supporting the families of Windows on the World employees who'd been killed in the attacks. He enlisted pals Bobby Flay and Mario Batali to join the project.

Personal

Valenti's wife, Abigail Wolcott, is a former model and actress (she had a part in the 1989 zombie flick Hellgate), and now has a line of skin care products. They live with their small army of cats in Washington Heights. A diehard fly fisherman, Valenti also has a weekend home on the Beaverkill River in the Catskills. If you're invited for the weekend, don't count on fish for dinner: Valenti says he throws back what he catches.

For the record

Although they're both in the industry and share the same last name, Valenti is not related to Patina Restaurant Group chief Nick Valenti.