“It’s a lot of fun,” Julian says. “We get to collaborate on things. Always have something to talk about, bounce ideas off each other. Obviously, there’s a couple of ups and downs, but overall I’d say we make it work really well.”
Antonovitch also got his start in hotel food and beverage and cooked in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza Hotel. His hotel and Ronald Reagan experience was cooking for the President’s inaugural dinners. He did a stint at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, worked with Wolfgang Puck and owned Spango on Knox Henderson.
“When I came here in ’94 I was competing against him [Colombo] and his corporate chef for the last 20 years,” Antonovitch says. “So then I said, if you can’t beat him, join him. So I joined him this year.”
Catherine, Patrick’s wife, whom he met at a Sfuzzi’s in Colorado more than 30 years ago, designed the interior of the restaurant with Julian. Restaurant Works keeps project management in-house for its concepts, so Patrick focused on the flow and structure of the restaurant, while Catherine and Julian focused on the finer points like the color, fabric and lighting. The split-level restaurant only has one TV for the just-in-case, must-watch events. The bar is not the focal point in the room, a step away from restaurant interior trends in the city.
There have been a few changes since the opening in December 2025. The difficult-to-prep Chicken Spiedini was removed from the menu. But then they made several additions – a roasted beet and burrata salad with a sherry thyme vinaigrette ($16), a rock shrimp scampi toast with Calabrian chili butter ($18) and a regularly requested, despite not being on the menu, chicken parm ($25). Then there were the dish adjustments – the salmon is now grilled ($30), not pan-seared. The cooking techniques on the chicken piccata ($24) were adjusted so the dish presented golden brown.
It’s all par for the course. Some of the adjustments are to remove obstacles for the kitchen to execute better, and some of the changes are to better guest experience, says Patrick.
The fig and rosemary old-fashioned and the espresso martini are popular items. The new Centrale Gardener, which is a cilantro, ginger, lime and serrano mezcal or tequila cocktail, tastes exactly how you imagine and not at the same time. Patrick’s favorite is the fedelini pomodoro ($21), which features burrata and thinner noodles. Julian likes the Romano chicken breast with the rigatoni à la vodka ($25).
Centrale Italia doesn’t exactly have a seasonal menu, but Antonovichto believes in cooking with the season.
Dining and Cooking