Jessica Botta is currently the Director of Training and Culinary Development for Chef Fabio Trabocchi at his restaurants Fiola, Casa Luca, and the forthcoming Fiola Mare. Jessica’s culinary career has brought her to the kitchens of two James Beard award-winning Italian chefs: Chef Roberto Donna at his landmark Washington, D.C., restaurant, Galileo; and of course Chef Fabio Trabocchi, at his award-winning Maestro in the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, Virginia, and Michelin-starred Fiamma in New York City. She got her first taste of the industry as an apprentice under Chef Craig Hartman at the Clifton Inn outside Charlottesville, and is a graduate of L’Academie de Cuisine.

Jessica was the chef-coordinator of the School of Italian Studies at the International Culinary Center (formerly FCI) in New York City, from 2008 until 2012. During that time she competed on Iron Chef America with Chef and Dean Cesare Casella, participated in the Sfoglino D’Oro, a pasta-making competition in Bologna, Italy and coordinated editorial production and all photography, food and prop styling for Chef Casella’s book, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Italian Cuisine, nominated for a 2013 James Beard Award.

Jessica is on the board of Culinary Corps, a service organization designed for culinary professionals, and is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier Washington DC chapter.

Prior to her career in food, Chef Jessica graduated from the University of Virginia, where she studied Italian literature and specifically the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. But as one Italian scholar has pointed out, “What is the glory of Dante compared to spaghetti?”