The First lady in the kitchen is the Italian Nadia Santini
The best female chef in the world is Nadia from the “Dal Pescatore” restaurant in Mantova while Massimo Bottura is 3rd in the rating of the TOP 50
Nadia Santini Dal Pescatore
An Italian lady wins the golden medal in the kitchen while in the general list, where the guys dominate with no competition, Massimo Bottura from the Osteria Francescana in Modena brings home a bronze medal.
Well done to both of them, to reach such heights is as difficult as winning the Olympics, maybe even harder. The English magazine “The world 50 best restaurant” awards in the first two positions giants such as Joan Roca El Celler de Can Roca (Girona Spain) and René Redzepi from Noma in Copenhagen. On the other hand the title won by Nadia Santini has previously been won in past years by Elena Arzak and Anna Sophie Pic, so actually an Italian, a Spanish and a French woman.
But lets see you this queen of the kitchen is, Nadia Santini, who looks like a University professor , with a nice face framed by silver hair and lively and curios eyes.
She was the first Italian to receive the three Michelin stars. Nadia was born in Vicenza, she met her husband Antonio Santini at the Milan University, which both left before getting their degree to go and work together in Antonio’s parents restaurant in Canneto sull’Oglio. It was an Osteria founded in 1925, inside a natural park which Nadia and Antonio have transformed into a temple for
Santini family
gluttons. They went to study cookery abroad, mostly with Paul Bocuse, who joined them in London for the award giving ceremony, and they created a unique and perfect proposal of recipes, starting from regional and family tradition. The themselves explain the alchemy between tradition and modernity as <<original equilibriums and harmonies>> and in the motivation of the award it is described as “ not quite like nonna used to make, but still rooted in its locality”. Today in the Pescatore kitchen one finds three generations: the mother in law Bruna, Nadia and her son Giovanni, basically all the dishes are prepared by the expert hands of the owners. This is a unique case in Italy, the Santini family is present en masse: six of them work in the kitchen or dining room. The result is a restaurant that is “idyllic”, that resembles a villa, where in the summer it it possible to eat out of doors, and where every detail is thought of with the same class that distinguishes the dishes.
Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini