In Atlanta, Piero Premoli reimagines the Feast of the Seven Fishes through a blend of heritage and refined flair. Each seafood dish becomes a tribute to his roots, filling the holiday table with flavor, memory, and family spirit.
Story by Su-Jit Lin
In 1991, a young Piero Premoli “did something a little crazy,” he grins with a wink. With his captain’s license in hand, “I sailed across the Atlantic in a sailing race to the United States,” he says, leaving his native Italy behind to find a new corner of the world to call home.
The first leg of his stateside adventures landed him in Miami, Florida, but it wasn’t until his travels took him to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — an Italian-American stronghold — that he dropped anchor. There, the Milan native found himself warmly welcomed as a curiosity and connection for those several generations removed from the motherland. And once word got around that he was working as a chef at New York City’s iconic Cafe Fiorello, the invitations from new friends and neighbors poured in.
“Everybody wanted me to try their wife’s or mother’s scungili, gabagool, cioppino, and other dishes they think are authentic Italian … ‘It’s the best!’ they’d say, and they’d want to know what I, a chef from Italy, thought. To this day,” he laughs heartily, “I still don’t know what some of these things are supposed to be! It’s American Italian! But I will never forget the loud, happy families, drinking wine and cooking, and what a great time young little Piero had.”
Yet of all these distinctly American Italian traditions, one whose roots he recognized and one that became an event he held dear was the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Unconsciously placing a hand on his stomach, a ghost of a memory, he says, “I remember my first one, I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s too much food, too much wine, and it just keeps coming!’ It seemed like there was always a full tray, and if it didn’t get finished, they start to look at you sideways.”
… And he loved it. This sense of hospitality, generosity, and celebration was a wonderful expansion of the sentiment around the treat of seafood for Christmas that he grew up with — the go-to for the holiday season.
“It’s rather expensive, but generally, in times of festivity with family, you eat more of it than any other time of year,” Piero explains. “But in America, it’s in great abundance, so immigrants to the U.S. came up with this feast to signify the days of the week.”
Other theories on the tradition’s origin touch on “the Roman Catholic custom of abstinence of meat and dairy on the eve of certain holidays, including Christmas,” according to an article by Eataly, and the number seven’s relationship to the sacraments and deadly sins, too.
Regardless of the why, the Feast of the Seven Fishes has become a cultural phenomenon shared among Americans of Italian heritage far beyond where the Sicilian and Neapolitans first settled, in the Northeast. And Piero has become one of the preachers of its gospel, bringing it to the South when he himself followed his fortunes to Atlanta over two decades ago.
It was in the dining room of Pricci, where he serves as executive chef, that the concept arrived in the city. The setting could not have been more fitting. A distinctly Art Deco-glam restaurant in the heart of toney Buckhead, it couldn’t help but bring up New York City memories.
And just as he did in Bay Ridge, Piero established relationships with his new neighbors, who became friends and regulars.
Many of them also hailed from Italian-American enclaves in the Northeast, and in menu planning for parties in the private dining rooms, he found himself working on celebrations that featured seafood, with seven courses hitting the sweet spot between sumptuous and surplus.
“I developed a formula that, for 20 years now, has been about the same. One or two appetizers, a soup, two pastas. An entrée, but all tasting portions,” he cautions with a chuckle, “because I wish I had it like that the first time, instead of having too much!”
Ticking off suggestions with his fingers, Piero elaborates, “I like to put down a great crudo of some sort, like tuna with shaved fennel and wild fennel pollen, brodo, or something with blood orange. It can be so beautiful, starting with some very pristine seafood. Then I like to do a baked dish. I love a tiella with rice, potatoes, and mussels. Or you can also make some calamari, octopus."
