Head Chef - Simon Moss
Simon Moss has retained the coveted one chefs’ hat from The Age Good Food Guide as head chef at Sapore for the last three years. His career started in his native New Zealand, learning the trade in hotels before taking his first head chef role at Cin Cin and then making his mark at One Tree Grill, voted Auckland’s best restaurant. After a stint in charge of the city’s busiest restaurant, Orbit, Sky City Casino, he was headhunted by Sydney’s Wildfire, before finding his spiritual culinary home in Melbourne.
Simon said: 'My cooking is innovative, with a playful aspect, while remaining true to classic flavours and tastes. It is probably best described as Modern Italian, but with a French influence as my early training was in the French style. I’m a creative person and am probably at my most creative when the seasons change, so my food is driven by seasonality. It shows good technique and I love to create elements that haven’t been seen before, but it remains approachable and recognisable. I like to think of it as subtly reinventing the wheel.'
Luisa Lucchesi - Co-owner
Luisa Lucchesi was born and bred in the hospitality industry. Luisa's father was a pastry chef in Lucca, Italy, before immigrating to Melbourne to join the institution that is Pellegrini. He and Luisa’s mother later started their own restaurant Pieronis, where Luisa made her start. Whilst completing her degree in Hotel Management & Marketing at RMIT, she gained invaluable experience at Cafe e Cucina, Sofitel and David Jones and then went on to complete a one-year traineeship at The Ramada Hotel in Palm Cove, Queensland. This led to a Restaurant Manager position at Ferntree Resort, Cape Tribulation, for the next three years, launching the restaurant from scratch.
Luisa then worked as Sales and Marketing Manager for Peter Rowland Major Events, whilst undertaking a post-graduate marketing degree before being headhunted by Stephanie Alexander to run Richmond Hill Cafe & Larder. She held this wonderful role for nearly five years before Stephanie and her partners made the offer for her to purchase RHCL. At the same time, Florentine in Brighton was also offered to Luisa and her business partners Peter & Kim Coronica (Coronichi Pty Ltd). In February 2005 they decided to take on both ventures in February 2005, Peter running Florentine while Luisa remained in the role as GM at Richmond Hill Cafe & Larder, where she increased the business valuation twelve-fold while Florentine’s sales increased by 50 per cent.
By October 2006, Kim, Peter & Luisa were ready to pursue their original plan, which was to have one restaurant each. So in October 2006, they purchased Sapore in St Kilda. Luisa has been running Sapore ever since and now, after five years, has purchased it from her former business partners, along with long-standing Head Chef, Simon Moss.
David Wickwar - Restaurant Manager
With over 10 years experience in the industry, David made his start in Spain. He then moved to Australia to manage a bar in Leichardt, Sydney. This led to various front-of-house roles in Melbourne, including stints at Scusa Mi and Chinois. He was also Bar Manager at Cervo for three years.
David then returned to London to head up the bar at Henry's of Piccadilly for two years. Returning to Melbourne in 2004, David's passion for Italian was re-ignited at Cafe di Stasio before he became an integral part of the Sapore team in 2006. Having recently passed the Court of Master Sommeliers course, he occupies a pivotal role as Restaurant Manager and In-House Sommelier at Sapore.
Chris Lillico - Sous Chef
Chris is a third-generation chef and grew up watching his dad work in kitchens in New Zealand, where he started work with Simon Gault at Euro as chef de partie. Having followed Simon to Sapore, where he was Junior sous chef for two years, Chris left for Europe where he was chef de partie at Philip Howard’s Kitchen W8 when it was awarded a Michelin star. After a spell as a private chef on a ‘superyacht’ Chris is back at Sapore and bursting with knowledge and enthusiasm to create modern Italian food alongside Simon.
Jenna Williams - Functions Manager and Assistant Restaurant Manager
Jenna cut her hospitality management teeth in the fast food industry before working at Jason Bradford’s Bulls Raw and Jason’s Terrace in Melbourne’s SE Suburbs. She went on to become head waiter at Nush in guys hill before working at Caboose in City Square, where her boyfriend was head chef. Jenna has now been at Sapore for nearly four years and is in charge of our functions operations, as well as being second-in-charge in the restaurant.