Gabriel Viti
Gabriel Viti, Jr. (born in Illinois in 1963) is a 54-year-old American open water swimmer, award winning chef and restaurateur, and extreme sports athlete from Highland Park, Illinois who owns Highwood’s Miramar Bistro.
Extreme Sports Career Highlights
- He competed in the 2014 Tampa Bay Marathon Swim.
- He summited Mount Everest on 22 May 2010 and completed Antarctica’s Mountain Vinson Massif, the last of the Seven Summits on 26 November 2011. He was the 335th person in the world to successfully climb the Seven Summits within 18 months.
- He completed the English Channel on 7 August 2014 in 15 hours 50 minutes, achieving the Peak and Pond Challenge and Triple Crown of Extreme Sports.
- He completed the Ironman Brazil Triathlon in 2007 and the Ironman Florida.
- He ran a marathon on the Great Wall of China in 2008.
- He has summated Cotopaxi in Ecuador, Mount Rainier and Mount Baker in Washington, and numerous peaks in the Alps namely The Eiger, the Matterhorn, and Mount Blanc.
Chef Biography
Viti's family has been in the restaurant business for 100 years. In high school he worked for restaurateur Arnie Morton (Morton’s, Arnold & Eddie’s Key Club, Playboy Clubs & Hotel, and Arnold Morton’s) in Chicago, then went to the Culinary Institute right out of school. Upon graduation in 1986, he apprenticed throughout Europe for six years at Point’s La Pyramide and Michel Guerard in France, Joel Robuchon in Paris, Freddy Girardet in Switzerland, and San Domenico in Italy.
When he returned to the U.S., he became one of the Corporate Chefs for Chicago’s Rich Melman’s Lettuce Entertainment Group, then left to work as sous chef for Great Chef Roland Liccioni at Carlos’ in Highwood, just north of Chicago, where he eventually became Executive Chef.
In 1993 he opened his first restaurant, Gabriel’s in the same town. Great Chefs Television televised him in 1994 to prepare three dishes: a Crespelle appetizer (episode #80) for their Great Chefs-Great Cities television series; and a Sea Bass en Papillotte entrée (episode #142) and a Crousillant dessert (episode #110) for their Great Chefs of America series.
In 2004, Chef Viti opened Miramar Bistro, a French bistro with Cuban accents in downtown Highwood, Illinois.
External links
- #13 Is A First: Anna Brown Does The Peak and Pond
- Greg Johnson Completes The Peak And Pond
- @MiramarBistro
- Hugo Rodriguez Barroso To Appear On WOWSA Live
- Miramar Bistro
- Three's A Charm For Professor Patrick McKnight
- Open Water Swimming
- World Open Water Swimming Association
- Marathon Swimming
- Tough Tackle Turbulent Tampa
- Collins On The Kattack
- Hertz Goes Into Overdrive
- Peaks And Ponds - Dryland And Open Water Endurance
- Peak And Pond People
- Allan McLeland Achieves Peak And Pond Challenge
- Jason Snell Achieves The Peak And Pond Challenge
- English Channel Swimming bio
- Restaurateur Successfully Swims The English Channel
- Gabriel Viti, Jr. Has An Appetite For The Extreme
