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Editor’s Note: This feature originally ran in the April/May edition of the LaGrange Living magazine, a publication produced bi-monthly by the LaGrange Daily News. If you would like to pick up a copy of the LaGrange Living magazine, please visit our office at 115 Broad Ste 101.

Venucci, in downtown LaGrange, sets itself apart from most other restaurants by making everything from scratch.

Restaurant owner and chef Tulla White learned the importance of making everything in-house in his training under a former Walt Disney World chef.

Those dining at Venucci can taste the difference starting with appetizers — all made from scratch with the best fresh ingredients, White said. Next, the salad features White’s homemade balsamic dressing, which he has bottled so patrons can take it home too.

The restaurant makes all of its bread from scratch, including the yeast dinner rolls and semolina bread. He said the seafood is delivered fresh every other day.

“I am very big on everything being made in house, everything possible,” White said.

The steaks are hand cut and cooked to perfection. He noted that the trimmings from the ribeyes, New York strip steaks and filet mignon are used to make the meatballs from scratch.

All desserts are homemade by the pastry chef, including the tiramisu, cheesecakes and chocolate mousse.

“The restaurant started out very simple with just hearty, everything made from scratch, Italian meals,” White said. Venucci opened in 2003 as White’s second restaurant — the first being the Basil Leaf that’s opening came on the tragic day, Sept. 11, 2001.

“You can imagine that was a kind of a crazy day to open a restaurant,” he said.

A long-family background is not all that chef White brings to the table; it’s also a lifetime of experience and training that helps delight customers with each meal served.

The chicken tortellini carbonara is one of the most popular entrees at Venucci.

“We take fresh chicken tenders and we buttermilk batter them and fry them,” he said. “Then we chop those up. We make a homemade Alfredo (sauce) and we mix it with diced hickory smoked bacon and then toss it with the chicken and cheese filled tortellini pasta. People love it.”

In addition to the options on the lunch and dinner menus, he said Venucci offers up to five specials a night, giving his chefs the opportunity to be creative with new options for customers.

“Last night we had a mixed grill with wild boar, cranberry sausage, filet mignon and fresh Atlantic salmon,” White said. “They can get as creative as they want.”

He said he’s sure this makes the customers happy because there are some that want to have something different every time they come in.

“I’ve got one customer, he’s a CEO of a local company here now. But in his college years he worked at my grandmother’s restaurant as a server,” White said. “He is a foodie and he will text me two or three times a week. ‘Hey, what you got coming in this week? What’s the special?”

It might be veal chops, a rack of lamb or Buffalo rib eye that he has coming in.

“I love people like that, that really appreciate what we try to do,” White said, noting no one in LaGrange does this and to find it would require a trip to Atlanta.

Sundays at Venucci is not something many would expect — Southern food options are featured.

They offer a meat and three sides for just $13.99, he said.

“You don’t think of an Italian restaurant having a Southern Sunday menu,” White said. “I’ve never seen one that does, but it works for us.”

Working out of Venucci, White also provides a catering service for weddings and corporate events, whether its lunch or dinner.

“If you’re a pharmaceutical rep and you need lunch for seven to 15 people during the week,” he said. They may call at 9 a.m. and want it delivered to a doctor’s office at 11:30 a.m.

“I always say anything from two to 2000, but it’s really two to whatever size you have. I’ll figure it out,” White noted, adding that this is the same good food featured at Venucci.

For those desiring other options, he mentioned that he had one client who wanted sushi stations catered.

“This past Saturday, we had a wedding that they did a kind of a weird mix,” White said. The meal was part Southern food and part taco bar. “I’m here to do what they want and their guests loved it.”

White is proud of the family heritage he brings to Venucci and his catering operation.

He is the fourth generation of the family in the business and his son Caleb’s involvement now extends that to a fifth generation. White’s great-grandmother, grandmother and father all operated restaurants, he noted.

While he learned a lot from helping at family businesses washing dishes and peeling potatoes, White got his real start working outside the family restaurants at age 14. This job came about after his father died and he started running with the wrong crowd.

“My mother sat me down and she said we’re not gonna do this,” he said. “She took me up to a small Italian restaurant in Hogansville called Hogan’s Heroes on a Saturday. I started washing dishes at 14.”

He said on his first day there, his shift started at 10 a.m. and ran through 11 p.m.

White stayed with the Hogansville restaurant for 10 years, while he was also going to culinary school.

With what he learned from Jeff Spader at Hogan’s Heroes, he went on to study under chef Henry Menard at West Georgia Technical School. Menard had served as executive chef at Walt Disney World, overseeing Epcot and a few other of the company’s properties.

“What he brought to the table was a lot of cooking styles that he personally had done,” White explained. This is where he learned the importance of making things from scratch, including items such as pastas and mayonnaise.

His background in Italian food at Hogan’s Heroes provided a great opportunity when the building where Venucci is located became available.

“I knew the owner,” White explained. “He was fixing to close and he called me and he said, ‘hey, I’m gonna close the restaurant. Do you want to buy any of this equipment?” White said, noting this came as he and his wife were on the way to Florida for vacation.

“I said, look, I’m literally in the car on my way to Florida. I’ll be back in five days, when I get back we’ll sit down,” White said. “Please give me first option. I’ll buy, you know, there’s several things I’m looking for.”

He knew the landlord, called him and asked if anyone had contacted him to lease the building. No one had and he got an excellent offer for a long-term lease at a price that was about a quarter of the amount he was paying at the Basil Leaf.

He said at that point he didn’t even know what he wanted to do with the space.

“So, while I was in Florida, we went to a place that was an Italian restaurant that was family style,” White explained. With a background of working in an Italian restaurant, he decided to bring this type of experience back to LaGrange.

“When I first opened, it was family style Italian, but people didn’t understand it,” he said. “They still wanted to order their own entree and not share.”

He quickly saw that not everyone wanted the same order.

“One person’s gonna want like spaghetti and the other one’s gonna want lasagna.”

They switched to the traditional orders from the menu and that has continued through today.

White continued to expand his food service options, growing to have five restaurants in the area. He decided that was too much when the recession hit in 2008 and opted to stick with Venucci and his catering business, which he could run out of the one restaurant.

“I’m just blessed and thankful that we weathered the storms,” he said, noting that the next was the COVID-19 pandemic. By setting up a takeout business for the community, people could pick up their orders without getting out of the car.

Venucci is located at 129 Main St., LaGrange and is open for lunch from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday and dinner 5-9:30 pm. Monday through Saturday. Sunday hours are 11 a.m.-2 p.m. No reservations are needed.

Feature by: Jeff Moore