Bruno Machiavello is the man who brought the authentic taste of Peruvian rotisserie chicken and its sidekick aji amarillo sauce to the lips of Charlotteans.

VIVA Chicken restaurant, which Machiavello started in the Elizabeth neighborhood with partner Randy Garcia in 2013, now has 16 locations throughout the Carolinas and as far away as Utah. In 2022, Machiavello opened a Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant in South End called Yunta Nikkei that quickly gained a loyal following.

Next, Chef Bruno has his sights on another Peruvian concept called La Lima, slated to open in October in the former Carrabba’s location on Park Avenue.

“I want to bring all of the cuisines from Peru here,” Machiavello says. “We saw how the city is changing and accepting different cultures. There is so much opportunity here.”

Tell me about your path to becoming a chef.

I grew up in Peru, but my family was from Italy. I feel Peruvian because I grew up there. My family had hotels, restaurants and bakeries so I grew up in that environment. My dad wasn’t a chef, but he and my grandmother gave me the passion for food. I went to school in Peru and then I went to Italy and went to cooking school to become a chef. I have worked in a lot of countries in Europe and learned a lot about food. My older brother was in Charlotte, and he had come here six years before me. When I came to Charlotte, I met Antonio Garcia, who had Villa Antonio restaurant. He hired me as a salad person because I didn’t speak much English. I became a chef and stayed there for 17 years.

How did VIVA Chicken come about?

I had the idea of VIVA Chicken all my life. I started VIVA Chicken with Randy, my partner, and it was a success. It was the first restaurant in Elizabeth that was Latino. We opened one Friday at 11 a.m. and by 11:15 a.m. we had our first customer and he loved it. For 20 minutes, we had nobody. By 12:40 p.m., there was a line all the way down the street. He was our number one customer, and we will always remember him. We always tried to do the best with the food and service. A restaurant’s success is 50% food and 50% the service.

How has VIVA Chicken grown?

The first five years we grew very fast. Now, we are trying to open one new restaurant a year. One of our investor partners owns a couple of restaurants in Utah and said let’s make this chicken travel across the states. Our first year in Utah was hard, but now it’s one of the best stores we have. There are a lot of missionaries in Utah that had been to Peru. All of the restaurants are company-owned. We want to keep it original and true to ourselves…

 

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