Simone Cerea
Food and Beverage Director
Four Seasons Tenure
- First hired 1993; now since 2001
- First Four Seasons Assignment: Chef de Partie, Four Seasons Hotel Milano
Employment History
- Four Seasons Resort Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt; Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui; Regent Singapore (formerly a Four Seasons hotel); Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest; Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara; Regent Kuala Lumpur (formerly a Four Seasons hotel); Four Seasons Hotel Milano
Education
- Associates Degree, Hotel, and Restaurant Management, San Pellegrino Terme, Italy
Birthplace
- Bergamo, Italy
Languages Spoken
- Italian, English, French, basic Spanish
“Coming from a resort to a city Hotel is an exciting change that I’m enjoying,” says Food and Beverage Director Simone Cerea, on his role in ensuring the success of the line-up of restaurants, bars and lounges including the large banquet operations at Four Seasons Hotel Amman.
Arriving in May 2024, Cerea took an oversight of six outlets set atop the tallest of Amman’s seven hills in a newly renovated hotel that is a beacon of elegance in the centre of the city – and the first and only hotel in Jordan to receive the prestigious Forbes Five-Star rating.
The outlets include a French brasserie; a trendy summer terrace serving Southern California cuisine; a Levant pop-up by the pool; the lobby lounge that serves brunch, afternoon tea and all-day dining; local and international favourites at breakfast; and bar bites and snacks at the sports bar; in addition to an extensive in room dining menu.
Simone is enjoying learning more about and experiencing Jordanian produce from local farms and suppliers. He says, “I encourage visitors in Amman to enjoy Jordan’s first farm-to-glass, seasonal bar menu a La Capitale Brasserie.” Cerea oversees the entire operation of each outlet, with a particular focus on service.
A native of Bergamo in the Lombardy region of Italy, Cerea brings a lot of experience to the operation under his purview. He has worked in the culinary industry since he was 13; while summering by the seaside with his father, he met a chef who had cooked on a cruise ship and told him stories that, he remembers, “blew my mind.” Despite knowing next to nothing about food, he enrolled in a culinary school, where a trainer soon told him a career in the kitchen was “probably not my best choice.”
Albeit, “I learned that professional progress is always about the people you come across on your career path. They are who give you the opportunities that lead to success.”
Cerea’s career path has taken him all over, starting with chopping parsley at a restaurant in his hometown that now has three Michelin stars. He worked in England, Paris and Geneva, and along the way opened an Italian restaurant in London that was pre-booked three weeks in advance. After a brief turn at Four Seasons Hotel Milano in the early 1990s, he returned to the company in Kuala Lumpur in 2001, and later became Executive Chef in Budapest.
It was as an Executive Chef for a former Four Seasons address in Singapore that Cerea hit the big time, leading a team of 90 chefs for, among other things, a Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant and one of the highest-rated cocktail bars in the world.
Cerea finally made the switch to directing food and beverage at Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui in Thailand, then to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, before coming to Amman. Again, he was drawn by the challenge, but also by the opportunity to experience a new destination in the Middle East.
