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Antonio Bettencourt
The road to the kitchen for Chef Antonio Bettencourt was a long and winding one. Bettencourt’s earliest experiences with cooking were at his mother’s side observing, helping and learning every night at dinner-time and holidays. Family trips to Brazil opened Bettencourt’s eyes to the relationship culture and geography have on food. The flavors and colors were something he had never experienced before and something the future chef would not forget.
After high school Bettencourt worked as a waiter at a local restaurant in Peabody where he learned the crucial details of running the front of the house, bartending, bussing and hosting. While at the restaurant Bettencourt would watch the kitchen intently and try to soak in as much as possible. Bettencourt found himself always asking questions and then going home and practicing what he had learned. One busy evening Bettencourt jumped in on the hot line and started helping on one of the stations and from then on became one of the chef’s regular fill-ins.
After a six year detour, Bettencourt could not stop thinking about the memories of cooking and of the adrenaline of the kitchen and decided to go to cooking school. Bettencourt studied at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in Cambridge, MA. under the watchful gaze of school director, Roberta Dowling. Bettencourt graduated with high honors in June of 2001.
In October of 2001, Bettencourt went on to Metro Brasserie and trained under chef Amanda Lydon, focusing on regional French cuisine. He then followed chef Lydon to Upstairs on the Square to serve as the executive sous chef to both Amanda Lydon and Susan Regis.
Chef Bettencourt opened Tomasso Trattoria and Enoteca in Southborough, MA in October of 2004. Bettencourt’s honest, regional Italian cooking helped Tomasso become the premier Italian restaurant in Metrowest. With Antonio at the helm the restaurant earned a Best of Boston award from Boston Magazine and also Best of the New from the Boston Globe. Chef Bettencourt was invited to cook at the prestigious James Beard Awards in New York and to teach at the Italian Culinary Institute.
Bettencourt opened Sixty2 on Wharf in February of 2008 in Salem, MA. where he brings his extensive training in both regional French and Italian cuisines to the North Shore.
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