While competing on the Bravo reality TV series "Top Chef," Fabio Viviani wowed judges and fans alike with his Old World charm, Italian accent and yummy-looking pasta dishes.   

He'll use those charms on local foodies next Sunday, July 17, at the Landis Valley Food and Spirits Festival, demonstrating the cooking technique that nearly made him a "Top Chef" finalist and the personality that won him a "fan favorite" title.

Viviani, reached recently by phone in Los Angeles-adjacent Moorpark, Calif., where he runs his Café Firenze restaurant, said his cuisine is a "homey" style of Italian cooking.

"But we make it pretty. … It is totally Italian-style comfort food. If I was American, I'd be from Louisiana," he said.

Viviani, 32, was the last "cheftestant" eliminated before the fifth-season finals of "Top Chef," and returned earlier this year to compete on "Top Chef All-Stars."

The kitchen was already the Florence-born Viviani's professional home by the time he was a teenager.

"My mom got sick, and I had to go to work (at age 12). It happens."

He started working the night shift in a bakery, and then, at age 14, began cooking in a busy trattoria in his hometown.

One day, the restaurant's regular chef cut himself, and Viviani had to take over his duties. "I was the only one there besides him. I was in the kitchen alone, and I had no choice." After going to culinary school, he opened his own restaurants in Italy.

He came to the United States in 2005 and eventually opened Café Firenze and his other establishment, Firenze Osteria in Los Angeles.

"My focus is fresh pasta, any day of the week, any time of the year, no matter how you shape it," Viviani said.

Amid the chaos, short tempers and tears that notoriously arise in the "Top Chef" kitchens during the sometimes-byzantine weekly challenges, Viviani tried to stay "very drama-free."

"I don't get why people are crying so much, why people would freak out" on the show, he said. "I would freak out on 'Dancing With the Stars,' if I had to sing and dance when I'm not used to it. But cooking is what we do for a living. You really have nothing to worry about.

"I'm not going away from who I am in a competition," Viviani said. "So the reason why I lost is because I couldn't get away from Italian food," amid the varied types of dishes chefs are required to present on the show.

Viviani also impressed the "Top Chef" judges while running "the front of the house" — seating and schmoozing the diners and instructing the servers — as his team created its pop-up restaurant during the show-staple "restaurant wars" challenge.

 "I'm more than just a chef," Viviani said. "I care for every aspect of the restaurant business, not just the food. I do every role in my restaurant. I make sure everything runs smooth."

He also used to be the personal chef for actor William Shatner.

"Now we're just good friends," Viviani said. "He really loves seafood, but he's a great eater. He's a man of good palate. He eats everything."

Viviani said his demonstration menu at the festival will involve "something seasonal. … What I'm going to teach people is how to make their life easier" in the kitchen.

Viviani has written the "Café Firenze Cookbook" — Firenze means "Florence" in Italian — and developed e-books and a technique-and-recipe smartphone app. He's also a spokesman for various Italian products.

"I'm proud of my country," he said, and likes to promote the "passion" behind his homeland's products.

He plans to publish another book next year: "My Son Is on Google: Recipes and Memories From an Italian Mom."

"It's a memoir about my mom and me, and my life story," Viviani said. "Because I went through a lot and I'm going to put everything on paper." His mom, by the way, is "doing fine."

Then Viviani delivers an understatement, wrapped in a pun: "I have many things on my plate."

He will sign his cookbook at the Food and Spirits Festival at 2 p.m. and present a cooking demonstration at 4 p.m. Chef Rocky Fino, author of "Will Cook for Sex," will give his demonstration at 2:30 p.m.

The festival, to be held on the grounds of Landis Valley Museum, features exhibits by more than 40 food and beverage vendors — many of whom offer tastings — along with a variety of cooking-related businesses. Central Pennsylvania Celtic music band Callanish and local jazz trio The Tom Pontz Project will play throughout the festival.

The event "is for foodies," said Lauren Ditmore, a special-projects planner for event sponsor Lancaster Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Sunday News. She noted that a portion of the proceeds will go to the museum, admission to which is included with every festival ticket.

The museum will offer open-hearth cooking demonstrations throughout the day.

The Landis Valley Food and Spirits Festival runs from 2-7 p.m. Sunday, July 17, at Landis Valley Museum, 2451 Kissel Hill Road. Discount tickets, at $45, are available online through Saturday, July 16, by phone and at Silver Moon Gallery in Park City Center. Tickets at the door cost $60. Special tickets that include a copy of Viviani's cookbook and a 5:30 p.m. meet-and-greet reception with the chef cost $80. For more information, call 291-8800 or visit lancasteronline.com/foodand....