Julius Spessot

Julius Spessot was born on July 23, 1931, in Piran, a city in modern-day Slovenia, though at the time of Spessot’s birth it was part of Italy.¹ As a child, Spessot received culinary training from his father, who owned a bakery. After World War II, Spessot worked as a cook for an Italian cruise ship company and eventually rose to be the company’s executive chef.² He moved to the United States in 1954 and found work in the food industry, including as a chef at a Vermont lodge and at a private club in New York City.³

In 1961, Spessot was hired to work at the White House at the suggestion of recently-hired Executive Chef Rene Verdon.⁴ Spessot served as Verdon’s assistant and helped prepare the food for State Dinners and other official functions. Spessot became known as the “platter prettier-upper,” and was skilled at creating decorative ice sculptures.⁵ When fellow White House chef Pearl Nelson - who cooked most of the Kennedy family’s personal meals – resigned in 1962, Spessot assumed her responsibilities.⁶ Spessot told journalists that the president enjoyed his cooking, particularly his fettuccine pasta, though he also stated: “I never could make New England fish chowder the way the president wanted it. He told me you had to be from New England to make fish chowder. I believe him.”⁷

Spessot often accompanied the first family when they traveled to their various vacation homes in Virginia, Palm Beach, Florida, and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to cook for them. He claimed that his young son George occasionally played with First Daughter Caroline Kennedy.⁸ Spessot became a U.S. citizen during his time at the White House.⁹

Spessot ceased working at the White House in the spring of 1963. The reason for his resignation is disputed. Spessot told journalists that he resigned because the long hours and frequent travel was hard on his family.¹⁰ However, White House Chief Usher J.B. West stated in his memoir that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy believed Verdon did not need an assistant and wanted to replace Spessot with a pastry chef. At Mrs. Kennedy’s request, West asked Spessot to resign but allowed him to stay at the White House on the Third Floor for two weeks and gave him a signed portrait of President Kennedy as compensation.¹¹ Whatever the reason for his resignation, Spessot told a journalist: “They were wonderful years” spent at the White House, adding “Both President and Mrs. Kennedy were very pleasant, warm human beings and very nice to work for.”¹²

After leaving the White House, Spessot served as the executive chef at several hotels in New York and New Jersey, and then founded a frozen food factory in Brooklyn.¹³ He passed away on April 1, 2003.¹⁴