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Giada De Laurentiis didn’t set out to become famous. She wasn’t chasing TV deals or dreaming of launching a digital brand. When Food Network first asked her to submit an audition tape, she resisted.
“I just wanted a job so I didn’t have to rely on my family,” she tells Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef.
The camera saw something she hadn’t planned for. So did the culture. Before the Emmy Awards and restaurant openings, De Laurentiis was a quiet kid in a very loud family. Born in Rome and raised in Los Angeles, she grew up in a household where tradition mattered, and heritage wasn’t negotiable.
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Her grandfather was a towering presence. A pasta maker turned film producer, he brought the whole family to the United States, chasing the promise of success in Hollywood.
Their world was a fusion of food and film. De Laurentiis remembers afternoons spent at her grandfather’s Italian food hall, watching customers marvel at imported cheeses, hanging salamis and ingredients they had never seen before. This was long before Italian food had gone mainstream in America. The experience was immersive, almost theatrical.
It left an imprint. She didn’t know it at the time, but those after-school visits would shape how she thought about food, emotion and hospitality. What drew people in wasn’t just the flavor. It was the feeling and the story.
“I wanted to do something that created that same reaction,” she says, thinking back to how guests responded to her grandfather’s markets.
Even as she studied food anthropology, trained in Paris and worked in fine dining, the storytelling instinct never left — it was part of her DNA. And when she finally said yes to a taped audition, it showed.
“I honestly had no desire to be in front of the camera,” she admits. “There was no plan.”
Everyday Italian became a breakout hit. But in De Laurentiis’s mind, the goal was never stardom: it was independence and self-definition.
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Building her Giadzy brand
Giadzy, the lifestyle brand De Laurentiis launched in 2016, started as a simple blog. It’s now a curated marketplace, media hub and ecommerce platform that reflects her take on Italian living: simple meals, joyful hospitality and stories that matter.
With recipe kits, travel tips and premium pantry staples sourced from Italy, Giadzy is a direct extension of De Laurentiis’s upbringing and personal ethos.
That foundation has positioned her for bigger moves. She recently partnered with Amazon on both a digital storefront and a new multi-year Amazon Studios unscripted series deal for Prime Video. She and Amazon are blending content and commerce in a way that lets her audience go from watching to cooking to shopping — all in the same digital space.
At the same time, she’s expanding her restaurant footprint. De Laurentiis’s Las Vegas location just passed the 10-year mark, a major milestone anywhere, let alone on the Strip. When she opened it, the Vegas dining scene was overwhelmingly male-led. As one of the few women stepping into that space with her name on the marquee, many doubted she would last. She didn’t just last — she built something that redefined what Vegas dining could feel like.
She’s now bringing the same approach to Chicagoland, where she’s launching two new restaurants: Sorellina and Sorella. One casual, one elevated. Both are designed to feel warm, bright and inviting — no moody steakhouses or overdone menus, just intentional design and food that speaks.
“I’m not trying to do what everyone else is doing,” De Laurentiis says. “I’m trying to create places that feel like me.”
That’s what her brand has always been about. Not chasing trends, but staying rooted in something deeper. “I don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” she laughs. “But I keep learning. And that’s what keeps me going.”
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Related: How a Spot on ‘The Montel Williams Show’ Sparked a Restaurant Power Brand for This Miami Chef
Giada De Laurentiis didn’t set out to become famous. She wasn’t chasing TV deals or dreaming of launching a digital brand. When Food Network first asked her to submit an audition tape, she resisted.
“I just wanted a job so I didn’t have to rely on my family,” she tells Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef.
The camera saw something she hadn’t planned for. So did the culture. Before the Emmy Awards and restaurant openings, De Laurentiis was a quiet kid in a very loud family. Born in Rome and raised in Los Angeles, she grew up in a household where tradition mattered, and heritage wasn’t negotiable.
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