Melissa Kelly is an American chef in Rockland, Maine in the United States. She received the 1999 and 2013 Best Chef in the Northeast honors in a James Beard Award. She co-founded Primo restaurant and is its executive chef preparing Italian cuisine and Mediterranean cuisine with a focus on local ingredients. She graduated first in class from the Culinary Institute of America and worked with Larry Forgione at An American Place and Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. [1] [2]
Chef Kelly owns and operates PRIMO Restaurants in Rockland, ME and in the JW Marriott Resort Grand Lakes in Orlando, FL. [3] She re-opened her Orlando location in the fall of 2021 after an extensive renovation tracing back to her family roots in Puglia, Italy. [4] [2]