The career of award-winning chef and restaurateur Gabriel Frasca began with a scoop of ice cream. Well, maybe several scoops. His first foray into the food business was an after school job in middle school at The Junction ice cream stand in Essex near his boyhood home. Next came a stint at Creed Catering in Beverly Farms, first in service and then moving to food preparation. The die wasn’t cast yet, though, as Frasca finished high school in Hamilton and studied journalism for two years at Kenyon College in Ohio.

Taking some time off from college to consider a transfer to another school, he first found a summer job at a restaurant in Gloucester where the employees had all come from the renowned Biba restaurant in Boston. “They took me on as a prep guy, then as a garde manger [salad chef],” he says. “It was intoxicating.” Now he was hooked. Next, he “talked myself into a job at Hamersley Bistro,” where he started to learn the fine art of French cooking from James Beard award winner Gordon Hamersley at the ripe old age of 20.

The trajectory was straight up from there: Chez Henri in Cambridge where he met chef Amanda Lydon, who became his partner and wife; L’abbaye de Saint Croix in Provence, France; Dolomites and St. Hubertus in Italy where he received his first Michelin star; Bouley Bakery in New York which earned a four-star rating from the New York Times; and Danube restaurant in New York which he helped open and earned three stars from NYT.

He returned to Boston to take his first chef position in 2000. In 2001, he worked at Aquitaine Bistro and then Radius restaurant and was recognized as Boston’s Rising Star by The Improper Bostonian. That year, Radius also won the Best Overall Restaurant Award from Boston Magazine and was named one of the top 25 restaurants by Gourmet magazine. In 2003, Frasca took over Spire restaurant, and in 2005 was named Best Chef, Up and Coming by Boston Magazine and awarded three stars by the Boston Globe. In 2006, he and Lydon took over the Straight Wharf Restaurant in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is still Executive Chef and Managing Partner.