Nadia Santini wins Veuve Clicquot award for World’s Best Female Chef
Nadia Santini, matriarch and head chef of the Dal Pescatore restaurant in Mantova, Italy, has been voted Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef 2013. This recognition is part of the prestigious 50 Best Restaurants in the World awards sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna.
Married into a family of restaurateurs, Nadia had never cooked professionally before arriving in the Dal Pescatore kitchens in 1974, where she began her apprenticeship with her new husband’s grandmother Teresa. 22 years later she became the first Italian woman to receive three Michelin stars. Today, she works in the restaurant with her husband Antonio, who heads up the restaurant’s front-of-house team, and her sons Alberto and Giovanni.
Nadia met Antonio while studying at Milan University. After spending their honeymoon researching renowned gourmet restaurants in France, they return to Dal Pescatore, which is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary (1975), to put into practice what they have learned. Nadia and Antonio propose changes to the kitchen layout and reorganize the family team. They included Antonio’s grandmother, as well as his father Giovanni and mother Bruna, who ran the restaurant at the time.
At the head of the Santini family culinary dynasty, Nadia Santini’s expertise as a chef has enabled the restaurant to achieve excellence. However, the values instilled by Teresa Santini have always remained very important. Nadia and her family describe their cuisine as full of character and charm, courteous, peaceful, a path paved with endless discovery and exploration. Ultimately, she wants every meal to be an enriching culinary experience. As Angela Hartnett, chef/owner of the three-star Italian restaurant Le Murano in London, explains:
“Nadia Santini is brilliant. Dal Pescatore is a fantastic restaurant, so relaxed and natural for a three-star that you feel like you’ve been invited into their home.
The Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef award recognizes the work of an exceptional female chef whose cuisine delights the world’s toughest critics, 936 of whom voted in this category. The award is inspired by the life and achievements of Madame Clicquot, who set the standard for the business woman nearly 200 years ago. The winner reflects Madame Clicquot and embodies the innovation, creativity and determination that were her hallmarks. As Veuve Clicquot’s Director of International Communications, Aymeric Sancerre, explains:
“Madame Clicquot is a woman who revolutionized champagne 200 years ago, with her extraordinary resilience, thirst for innovation and quest for ultimate quality. Nadia Santini represents exactly these values in gastronomy today, and I’m proud that our name and our rich history are associated with such a wonderful personality.” Nadia Santini received the news with a special thought for the efforts of her family:
“I’m very happy and honored to receive such important recognition. For me, it goes to the whole of Dal Pescatore, to my family who work with me, my husband Antonio, my extraordinary sons, Giovanni who runs the kitchen with me and Alberto who runs the dining room and looks after the wine, to Antonio’s grandmother who passed on so many secrets to me, and to Giovanni’s wife Valentina who is also very active in the restaurant.”
Winning the Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef award puts Nadia Santini in very good company; previous winners are Elena Arzak of the renowned Arzak in San Sebastian, and Anne-Sophie Pic of Maison Pic in Valence, France.
Julien Tissot
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