If you’ve spent any amount of time around Richmond’s restaurant scene, you’ve heard someone talk about La Grotta in a tone that borders on reverence. It’s the kind of place people describe with a knowing smile—one earned over years of birthdays, anniversaries, long dinners, and meals that linger in memory far longer than the last bite.
But long before La Grotta became a Richmond institution, it began as a childhood dream in Italy, where a young Antonio Capece watched the cooks in his family turn simple ingredients into something magical. “I have been a chef for all of my professional life,” he says. “My inspiration came from my childhood back in native Italy.” Those early impressions—flour-dusted hands, slow-simmering pots, the sense that food was both sustenance and celebration—never left him.
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