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Giada De Laurentiis Opening Restaurant At The Horseshoe Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A popular Italian chef from the West Coast is bringing her Italian flavor to Baltimore.

Giada De Laurentiis, host of Food Network's "Giada at Home", is expanding her growing culinary empire with a new restaurant opening at the Horseshoe Baltimore.

"I am not one of those chefs who has lots of different restaurants all over the world and I started on television first," De Laurentiis said.

The chef and television personality already has a successful restaurant at the Cromwell Hotel in Las Vegas and is opening another at Caesars Palace.

"This will be, sort of, an in between restaurant. It is not a fine-dining, quick-serve restaurant. It is more of a trattoria style, casual with an elevated menu," she said.

De Laurentiis joins other celebrity chefs, such as Guy Fieri and Gordon Ramsay, opening namesake spots at the Baltimore casino.

"It hasn't got that big, boisterous feel like Las Vegas, it's intimate," she said.

De Laurentiis says she's spending a lot of time in Baltimore, getting to know the neighborhoods, locals and Maryland flavors to integrate into her menu.

"It is my duty to make good on a promise, to everyone who is a fan of mine, who cooks my food and buys my books and watches my shows, that I deliver the promise I make every day on television," she said. "It's an inviting place to be. Has great food and people will be kind and respectful to you."

The new restaurant will take over the second-floor space where Johnny Sànchez Baltimore, which closed in September, was located.

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