Leonardo Chaparro
Executive Chef
For Leo, hospitality is about making people feel special from the moment they open the door. A big smile, a great server, and a beautiful dish all come together to create something bigger than any single plate. He puts it best with a dessert: everything around the food is the brownie, the foundation of the experience, and the food is the ice cream, the sweet part guests remember.
Leo's culinary journey began in Venezuela, where he studied cooking out of pure passion. When he came to the United States, he started where so many great chefs do, as a dishwasher, and fell in love with the energy of the kitchen. Over the next decade, he worked his way through restaurants big and small, but it was Sexy Fish in Miami that truly shaped him. There, under a chef he now calls a friend, he learned how to handle every situation a kitchen can throw at you. After nearly three years in Nashville, Leo was ready to return to Florida and challenge himself at the highest level. Ro gave him that opportunity, along with a company whose values matched his own.
What drives Leo is the details. When he's focused on them, the hours fly by, whether he's motivating his team, checking techniques, or teaching something new. With a background rooted in sushi, he has a clear ambition: to perfect the sushi at Ro until it's the talk of Tampa. As a leader, he's open with his team but firm on standards. He believes everyone should take care of the restaurant because the restaurant takes care of them, and he gives 100%, with no gray areas. Above all, he believes in his people, often more than they believe in themselves.
His signature is the mix of flavors. Raised on both the Latin American cuisine of his home country and the Spanish cooking of his family, Leo blends those influences with Japanese technique to create something entirely his own. Guests can expect bold, unexpected touches, Latin and Mediterranean notes with a Japanese foundation. And the feeling he wants every guest to leave with is simple: impressed.
That focus on quality shows in what he loves most about Ro: the fish. It's so fresh you can taste the difference between each cut of tuna without anyone telling you. He's also a fan of the Braised Udon and the Fried Rice. For Leo, that freshness comes from fine-dining discipline, checking every delivery for color and quality, because, as he says, this restaurant deserves it.
Leo describes the Ro experience in three words: warm, expectations, and love. It's warm because of a team that makes every guest feel comfortable. It's about expectations because guests arrive expecting something great, and Ro is there to exceed them. And it's love, the kind you feel sharing a meal with family, a date, or even dining solo. With Leo in the kitchen, there's no ceiling for what Ro can become, and every visit is a chance to be impressed all over again.