Chef
Adrian Kercuku
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- New York City, New York, United States
i. Biography
Executive Chef Adrian Kercuku leads Casa Lever in New York City after a route that begins in Florence, Italy, and moves through New York kitchens with Felice 56, Felice 64, and da Adriano. The work reads as a clean transfer of Tuscan technique into Manhattan service: familiar dishes, reworked without losing their regional frame. Florence supplies the base language; New York supplies the pace, the finish, and the pressure of making that language legible in a different room.
The Path
Today, Adrian Kercuku is Executive Chef of Casa Lever, where the position sits at the end of a direct professional sequence rather than a wide detour. Florence comes first, then New York, then a run of kitchens in which executive responsibility becomes the main thread. The career builds by accumulation: each post reinforces the same discipline of keeping familiar flavors clear while placing them in a new setting.
The Work Today
At Casa Lever, the cooking is organized around Tuscan inheritance and adaptation. Adrian Kercuku’s menu does not treat origin as decoration; it treats it as structure. The dishes carry their source plainly, but they are not locked into it. That balance gives the room its tone: confident, controlled, and specific about where the food comes from. The craft note here is the handling of everyday Tuscan recipes passed down for generations. That means the work is grounded in family-line cooking, not in abstraction or reinvention for its own sake. The recipes remain recognizable, but the hand on them is current. They are moved forward with restraint, so the lineage stays intact even as the plate changes. Taken against the earlier posts, the present job gathers the career into one visible New York City role. Felice 56 and Felice 64 established executive-chef experience; da Adriano made the chef-owner chapter explicit in 2023. Casa Lever brings those responsibilities into a single kitchen, where the earlier sequence reads as preparation for this position rather than a separate set of stops.
Signature
Adrian's signature dishes include Tonarelli Cacio e Pepe, Spaghetti Carbonara, Rigatoni al Pomodoro, and La Chiantigiana di Adriano. Together, they point to a kitchen working with well-known forms and a direct hand: dishes the trade knows, handled with enough precision to keep them focused.
Acclaim
For a chef from Florence working in New York City, the defining line is the Tuscan menu language carried across these posts. The clearest marker is the generational recipe base: everyday Tuscan cooking revised through his own kitchen practice. That is the work as a whole—continuity without freeze-frame, and a sense of place that stays readable as it moves.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Adrian
What is Adrian Kercuku's current role?
As of 2026, Adrian Kercuku is Executive Chef.
What is Adrian Kercuku known for?
He describes the menu as "a twist on everyday Tuscan recipes that have been passed down for generations.".
