El Gaucho Inca

ABOUT US

 

El Gaucho Inca is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Chef Mariano Maldonado and Rocio Navarrete.

The story of this restaurant starts out like many great stories, it stars with love, it starts when Chef Mariano Maldonado met wife entrepreneur and business women Rocio Navarrete, he was the Gaucho and she was the Inca. On April 2011 El Gaucho Inca Restaurant opened its doors to the Southwest Florida Community.

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Chef  Mariano Maldonado was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been involved in the culinary since he was just a bambino in his parents house in Argentina, where his part Italian father and mother, aunts, and grandmothers would cook for their large weekly family gatherings, and from them he learned the secrets and passion of great homemade food. As he grew up, he became fluent in Argentinean and Italian cuisine. Chef Maldonado arrived to Naples, Florida in 2000 and immediately started working at an upscale restaurant, and while he was working there he dreamed of one day opening a restaurant of his own. In 2002 he met Rocio Navarrete and that dream of opening an Peruvian restaurant took a creative and invigorating turn.

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Chef Mariano Maldonado and Rocio Navarrete live in Fort Myers, Florida. He has one daughter Julieta, and son Matias (The Gauchos), Rocio Navarrete has two daughters Bonie and Michelle (The Incas), and together they have one daughter Mariana (Who is both Gaucho and Inca).