Le Jeune Chef Restaurant

Lifelong Education Center, Rm. B107 · For reservations phone (570) 320-CHEF or (570) 320-2433

Visiting Chef

* This biography was accurate at the time of the chef's appearance on campus. (April 17, 2004)

Dominique Filoni

Executive Chef/Owner, Savona

Dominique Filoni was born and raised in St. Tropez, France, with a passion for cooking. Family activities often revolved around food, whether it was helping his grandmother prepare one of her legendary culinary specialties, foraging for exotic mushrooms and wild leeks with his uncle, tending to the family garden, or searching for snails with his mother. At the age of sixteen, Mr. Filoni graduated with honors from the intensive culinary program at the Lycee Hotelier Institute in Hyeres, France.

For five years, Mr. Filoni cooked at several well-regarded restaurants in the French Alps, the French Riviera and Paris. During this time, Chef Filoni learned the importance of using the freshest ingredients and the necessity of incorporating these ingredients on a seasonal basis into menu development. As he rose through the ranks, he also began to understand the subtle hand necessary to coax maximum flavor out of an ingredient by letting the flavors speak for themselves.

Always eager to expand his knowledge, Mr. Filoni moved to the United States in 1995 to accept the position of Chef de Cuisine at the newly opened Tierra restaurant in Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania.

In 1997, the owners of the former Tierra restaurant recognized Dominique’s extraordinary talent and promoted him to Executive Chef at the subsequently named Savona. Keeping in tune with his simple philosophy to utilize the best ingredients available, Dominique blended his superb French discipline with his love for Italian spontaneity, the result being his own innovative signature style of cooking. Mr. Filoni’s dedication to Savona was further rewarded when he became one of the restaurant’s partners in 2000.

Savona features Riviera-inspired cuisine that has been lauded by John Mariani of Wine Spectator and Esquire magazines as “exquisitely fresh and wonderfully simple”. Savona’s menu changes frequently to reflect seasonal appropriateness of ingredients as well as evolution of the Chef’s culinary style.

Chef Filoni has been featured on the TV Food Network, in Wine Spectator, Bon Appetit, Vanity Fair and Culinary Trends, among others. Savona has received the DiRoNA award, Four AAA Diamonds, the Five Star Diamond award from the National Academy of Hospitality Sciences and Wine Spectator’s “Best of” Award of Excellence each year since its opening.

Mr. Filoni resides in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sabine. They are expecting their first child in February.

Referred to as "Louisiana's Ambassador to the World," Chef Folse continues to spread his enthusiasm for Cajun and Creole cuisine throughout the world. Penn College is honored to be one of the stops on his international "culinary campaign."