Biography

After graduating from Xaverian High School in June of 2000 with honors for his academic performance and community service with Kiwanis International raising over $19,000 for charities, Vincent attended the Art Institute of New York were his concentration was Culinary and Pastry Arts and Restaurant Management. Throughout his culinary school career Chef Tropepe has proven himself to be one of the highest-ranking students within the school.

In 2002 upon graduating, Chef Tropepe was honored with a gold medal in Culinary and Pastry arts as being the highest ranked student in a culinary, pastry and restaurant management degree program. His teachers and those that knew him the best knew this was no surprise. He is recognized for his certifications by the NRA in four distinguished areas after passing rigorous examinations they are Menu Management, Beverage and Food Cost Control, Nutrition and Sanitation. Not to mention that being a driven culinary student he mastered 15 different cuisines, Italian, French, Greek, Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Floridian, Californian, Southern American, American Continental, Infusion Cooking, BBQ to name a few.

While in culinary school, Vincent decided that his interest of religion was also an area that we would like to study as well. He applied and was accepted to London, England’s Stafford University were he received the Chancellors Academic Scholarship as a distant learning student were he studied and obtained his Bachelors of Arts Degree in Christian Theology.

While going to school for two areas of study simultaneously, Vincent also held many jobs. At a young age Vincent was hired to be a line cook at a popular Bensonhurst, Brooklyn restaurant where Vincent clearly took command of his station while proving to the owner that his understanding of food surpassed his line cook duties. He quickly went up the ranks of the kitchen and by the age of 20 was the executive chef of the restaurant.

Now as the executive chef, he made many improvements to the menu and the kitchen staff and made this already popular restaurant even more popular and making sales almost triple. Clearly, Vincent’s understanding of food, the workings of the restaurant business, food trends and culinary education paid off. However, Vincent contributes his success by being around food his whole life. His parents had a thriving chocolate business in Brooklyn, where he learned the art of making delicious chocolates and chocolate sculpting.

Chef Tropepe also served as Michael Bolton’s personal chef at his New York City residence for a period of time. While being in the personal chef sector of the food business chef cooked for many important people such as former first lady Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, baseball legend Phil Rizzutto and P. Diddy to name a few.

In 2005 Chef Tropepe opened his own Italian cookie company called, Grandma Helina’s Italian Cookie Company Incorporated where he handmade, gift wrapped and imported his glorified Italian cookies, to stores, gift shops and supermarkets including the famed Wegman’s all across the country and even had the Trump Organization singing his praises.

From 2002 to 2005 Tropepe did freelance restaurant consulting work. He figured by doing freelance consulting, it would expose him to variety of different types of kitchens and how differently they are ran. He quickly realized that although a restaurant may have three or four star cuisine does not mean they have a three or four star of getting them. With his no nonsense attitude and accepting no back talk Chef Tropepe made even the worst unorganized restaurant run like a well-oiled machine. It is also with his teaching techniques that allowed the staff both in front and in back of the house realized that his demeanor is sparked by passion for food and wanting the restaurant and staff to thrive and they all did. With a proven track record of making restaurants run more effectively. He has consulted over 300 restaurants during that time and did consulting work in a wide variety of restaurants and food service establishments.

In October of 2007, Chef Tropepe finished writing his first culinary cook book and is now under going revisions and being typed for publisher’s viewing and circulation.

In January of 2008, Chef Tropepe was contacted by the administration of Mercy Vocational High School, the only catholic co ed vocational school in the country, after much conversation and demonstration Chef Tropepe was invited to teach in their culinary arts department. Not having much prior knowledge about the school, and not knowing anything about Philadelphia or anyone in that case either, chef knew that from the moment he walked in that Mercy Vocational High School was a very special place with a very special mission he wished to take part in. Chef accepted their invitation and leaving a city he loved and grew up in and his family and friends he moved to Philadelphia to teach these marvelous future chefs.

It wasn’t that long after that the owner of a restaurant staple in South Philly, called Chef Tropepe and is also working closely with the owner, and both front of the house and back of the house to have this restaurant maintain its 15 year momentum for many years to come.

It is apparent that Chef Tropepe has a huge amount of culinary experience and what seems to be an endless well of culinary knowledge. He has taken culinary and pastry arts to new levels wherever he went and worked and always served up a little part of himself on a plate all the time.