Restaurateur Sylvie Gabriele Is Not the Boss’s Daughter Anymore

As a child, Sylvie Gabriele spent every other weekend with her father, Guy. Most of those weekends were spent at his restaurant, Café Pierre.

At just 9 years old, Sylvie went missing in the restaurant. Guy frantically looked everywhere. Turns out she was sitting with a customer, asking if she was enjoying her meal, and the two had gotten caught up in a conversation. At that moment, Guy knew his daughter was destined to be in the restaurant business.

Located in Downtown Manhattan Beach, Café Pierre was the first real upscale restaurant in that Beach City—and a beloved neighborhood institution. Sylvie bought the business from her father for a great price and created Love & Salt, an Italian-inspired restaurant with a California soul.

Sylvie fought hard to be taken seriously in what can easily be considered “a male-dominated restaurant industry.” She worked on and off at Cafe Pierre for most of her youth—first as a hostess, then a server, then running the floor and eventually becoming the manager. She learned the operations of the business.

A graduate of UCLA, she also received her MBA at Loyola and became a licensed Realtor. When you are the owner’s daughter, you are never treated like one of the crew … so she always had to rise to the occasion and prove her job was not due to nepotism.

“In addition to overseeing everyone who fell under the restaurant family umbrella, I advised my dad on real estate investments and other financial decisions, as well as making executive decisions with strategy and planning,” she explains.

Sylvie married chef Alex Mosavi in 1998. Farm Stand, a restaurant in El Segundo, was their first venture together. It was an organic, non-GMO restaurant and catering company that specialized in French, Italian, Turkish and Persian dishes. In 2014 they sold the restaurant portion of Farm Stand but still operate Farm Stand Catering with an impressive list of clients including the NHL, NBA and Chevron.

After a couple decades in the restaurant industry, she brings a sharp business acumen to her ownership roles. Keep a lookout for Sylvie’s new project: a fine, fast-casual Middle Eastern restaurant coming soon to the South Bay.