Since he was a young boy, Giuseppe Letteri has been surrounded by food. He would help his dad in the butcher shop in early mornings before school back home in Italy. After going to culinary school, Letteri had a stint as a professional basketball star in Italy. He then decided to pursue a career as a chef, and after many years of being a head chef and a personal chef, he decided to start Hush, a private dining club.

“My dad would always say, ‘In America, they don’t dine, they just eat.’” Letteri said. Hush, which marked its first anniversary in October, is a dining experience, not a restaurant. The name came to Letteri from a newspaper’s headline about a dining experience in Boston called, 24 chairs. It said something along the lines of “This Place is Very Hush Hush,” he recalled.