Chef Patrick Costa was born in Southern California, but spent his first six years in Rome, Italy before moving back to the states. As one can imagine, these formative years were spent in the kitchen with close Italian relatives. He drew inspiration from his grandmother, who’d only cook using fresh, home grown herbs and local market produce.

Being the son of a Naval officer, he traveled with his family often, and it was during these trips that Chef Costa was exposed to different foods across the globe, solidifying his love for cooking and the culinary arts.

Costa spent a number of years at L20, an upscale Michelin-starred seafood restaurant located in Lincoln Park, Chicago, where he worked under Laurent Gras, who would go on to play a very influential role in the trajectory of Costa’s career. From 2011 to 2014, Chef Costa went on to develop and manage the opening of Stella Barra, a brand new pizzeria concept located in the heart of Hollywood. After that, he served as Executive Chef at The Hart and the Hunter before joining Reissco as the Culinary Director for three restaurant concepts including a seafood bistro, East Coast-style pizzeria and an island-inspired cookshop, creating and overseeing seasonal menus for all three spaces.

Most recently Patrick has been consulting with pizza, menu creation and kitchen design. This has led to Co-founding De La Nonna with long time friend Jose Cordon. Collaborating on their passion for familial hospitality, craveable food and memorable cocktails, Costa and Cordon have created their own path in a time when we all need a seat at “Nonna's table”.

Born and raised in the “Windy City”, Jose landed his first job in the hospitality industry at the age of 20, starting out hosting and bar-backing, and quickly progressing to bartending and managing within a few short years. This passion propelled him towards formulating numerous successful cocktail programs around Chicago, which quickly cemented his presence in the industry both for his creations as well as his execution of service.

In 2016, Jose moved to Los Angeles. He has connected with many industry professionals in the Los Angeles area by helping to create and maintain cocktail event programming for N2Mixology, as well as consulting on the opening and reopening of cocktail programs for The Everly Hotel in Hollywood and The Viceroy Ermitage in Beverly Hills respectively. Jose just completed his 3 year tenure as the bar manager for the critically acclaimed Felix Trattoria in Venice, where he truly indulged in the crafting of his two favorite styles of drinks: the Aperitivo and Digestivo.

This has all led Jose to his new role as co-founder of De La Nonna with his long time friend Chef Patrick Costa. Having never worked in the same professional kitchen side-by-side, the idea to create and build together on something they both are ridiculously passionate about, pizza and libations, was a fortuitous partnership forged out of these difficult times.

In addition to his cocktail prowess, “@TheFuzzZ” enjoys DJing events around the city, cooking a feast for his friends and family and scouring the deepest realms of the net for vintage Chicago Bulls t-shirts.

Lee Zaremba is an experienced beverage and operations professional living in Los Angeles, California. Before moving to California this past fall, he was acting beverage director for the James Beard Award winning Boka Restaurant Group in Chicago, Illinois. Lee spent the last four years opening 9 new concepts and overseeing beverage programming for all 16 locations including Momotaro, Girl and the Goat, and Lazy Bird, a cocktail bar he helped create located inside the Hoxton Hotel. There he published his first cocktail book and received a number of acknowledgements including Hotel Bar of the Year 2020.

His move to California was inspired by a dream to open his own bars and restaurants with a distinct code of ethics that takes care of its people, and is excited to start that journey with his good friends José and Patrick as De La Nonna.