Joey Fecci Award for Culinary Excellence

In April 2024, tragedy struck when rising culinary star Joseph D. Fecci passed away at the young age of 26 in Nashville, Tennessee. At the time of his passing, he was in the early stages of opening his own restaurant following his role as chef de cuisine at Yolan at The Joseph, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Nashville.

Trazee Travel honors the legacy of Fecci with the introduction of the Joey Fecci Award for Culinary Excellence to The Trazees. The first award will be handed out in 2025 and the award will officially launch when trazeetravel.com celebrates the 2024 winners of The Trazees at The Joseph, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Nashville, in August 2024.

Nominations are now open for up-and-coming professional hotel chefs under the age of 40. Nominated chefs should show passion, dedication, originality, creativity and leadership, qualities Fecci embodied and lived every day.

© The Joseph Hotel Nashville

Fecci’s memory will live on at Yolan, where his influence remains strong after his untimely passing. In his role he was responsible for leading research and development for the seasonally changing and Italian regionally inspired menus at the hotel’s refined Italian restaurant. Fecci also oversaw Yolan’s culinary team, ensuring strong collaboration and support across the kitchen. Fecci was instrumental in implementing and creating strong relationships to source produce and ingredients from a variety of local farmers. A member of the Yolan team since the restaurant opened in August 2020, Fecci worked alongside Chef Tony Mantuano since Fecci worked his way throughout the entire line of Spiaggia in Chicago from 2017 through 2019.

Fecci had been in the kitchen from a young age. He held his first restaurant job at 15 at Lucia, an Italian restaurant in the town where he grew up. Following graduation from The Culinary Institute of America in 2017, he externed at Aureole, Charlie Palmer’s Michelin-starred flagship at the time, where he worked through the line and became a Chef de Partie. Prior to joining the team at The Joseph, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Nashville, Fecci was Chef de Partie at Per Se in New York City, overseeing the first course of a daily changing tasting menu.

© The Joseph Hotel Nashville

Fecci was born and raised in Somers, New York, and is remembered as a bright light of positivity and inspiration in the lives of everyone he touched. Aside from his love of cooking, he enjoyed golf, skiing and sharing meals with loved ones. He was a passionate New York sports fan and his family and all who knew him miss him dearly.

The Joey Fecci Foundation has been established in his memory to help administer a culinary
scholarship program. Learn more at joeyfeccifoundation.org.