Chef
Raffaele Ruggeri
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- Palm Beach, Florida, United States
i. Biography
Tuscany is the first place in Raffaele Ruggeri’s story, and Milanese cuisine is the material he keeps returning to: a regional grammar rather than a broad idea of Italy. As CEO of Bice Restaurant Group, he carries that inheritance through more than two dozen sister locations, while remaining tied to the kitchen at Bice Ristorante in Palm Beach, United States.
The Estate
Ruggeri was born in Tuscany, Italy, a beginning that places his work inside a specifically Italian sense of origin before it ever reaches Florida. The family line runs through Milan as well: Bice Ristorante was founded there in 1926 by his grandmother, Beatrice “Bice” Ruggeri. That founding year is central since the Palm Beach restaurant is not presented as a detached outpost; it belongs to a family story that began with Beatrice’s name on the door. Ruggeri’s role now is organizational and culinary at once: he is CEO of Bice Restaurant Group and oversees more than two dozen sister locations as CEO of BiCE Group. The Palm Beach address became more central to his life in 2023, when he moved with his family to be more involved with that location. The move gives the work a lived-in scale: not only a corporate role across many rooms, but a daily relationship with one dining room, one staff, and one community of guests.
In the Cellar
The cooking associated with Ruggeri at Bice Ristorante in Palm Beach is Milanese cuisine. Its definition is narrow by choice: Northern Italian cooking rather than broad red-sauce nostalgia. That distinction gives the restaurant its center of gravity. Instead of using Italian cuisine as a catchall, the work points north, toward a regional style with its own restraint, sequence, and sense of measure. At Café Med in West Palm Beach, United States, the craft note is Authentic Italian cuisine crafted with meticulous care. The phrase is plain, but it says something important about process: care is not decoration; it is the working method. Hospitality is part of the same method. Ruggeri continues BiCE’s legacy of warmth, belonging, authenticity, and hospitality, so the service culture is not separate from the cooking. The room, the welcome, and the plate are treated as one continuous act.
The Bottlings
The clearest release is Bice Ristorante in Palm Beach, where Ruggeri serves as executive chef. In that kitchen, the named specialty is Milanese cuisine, carried through a Northern Italian lens. His broader bottling is the group itself: more than two dozen sister locations under the BiCE name. As CEO, his work moves between scale and specificity, between a family-founded Milan restaurant from 1926 and the demands of a Palm Beach dining room he chose to live closer to in 2023.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Raffaele
Where does Raffaele Ruggeri work?
Raffaele Ruggeri is CEO of Bice Restaurant Group and executive chef of Bice Ristorante in Palm Beach, United States.
What style or method defines Raffaele Ruggeri's work?
His work is defined by Milanese cuisine and Northern Italian cooking rather than broad red-sauce nostalgia.
What are Raffaele Ruggeri's signature releases or dishes?
His named specialty is Milanese cuisine at Bice Ristorante in Palm Beach.
