Nadia Santini

Nadia Santini was born in 1953 in San Pietro Mussolino, a small town in the province of Vicenza in the Veneto, into a farming family. Her exact birth date has not been widely published. Little else about her childhood has been reported, beyond the rural background that she later said shaped her respect for the land and its produce.

She studied food science (Scienze dell'alimentazione) at a girls' technical institute, then enrolled in political science at the University of Milan. It was there, in 1973, that she met fellow student Antonio Santini, whose family ran the inn that became Dal Pescatore. She had no professional culinary training: no stages and no cooking school. Everything she learned in the kitchen came from the women of the Santini family and from her own study and tasting.

Dal Pescatore began in the mid-1920s as an inn called Vino e Pesce at the Runate farmstead in Canneto sull'Oglio, opened by Antonio Santini senior, a fisherman and ferryman on the Oglio, and his wife Teresa Mazzi. It took the name Dal Pescatore under their son Giovanni and his wife Bruna.

After marrying Antonio in May 1974 and honeymooning among the great restaurants of France, Nadia entered the kitchen, learning from Teresa and especially from her mother-in-law Bruna. She combined the cooking of the lower Lombard countryside with French refinement and an obsessive respect for ingredients. Signature dishes included pumpkin tortelli, agnoli in broth and preparations of freshwater fish.

The restaurant won its first Michelin star in 1982 and its second in 1988, joined Relais and Chateaux in 1990 and Les Grandes Tables du Monde in 1992, and won its third star in 1996. It held three stars without interruption for three decades, the longest such run in Italy. Antonio led the dining room and Nadia the kitchen, later joined by their sons Giovanni in the kitchen and Alberto as sommelier and dining room manager.

Nadia married Antonio Santini on 6 May 1974, about a year after they met as political science students in Milan. Because she was not yet 21, then the age of majority, her parents had to sign their consent. The couple had two sons, Giovanni (born 1976), who became chef at Dal Pescatore, and Alberto (born 1983), who became its sommelier and front of house manager. Giovanni's son Lorenzo represents a fifth generation of the family. She lived and worked at Runate, Canneto sull'Oglio, for more than fifty years. According to her husband, she had lived with illness for about twenty years without ever stopping work.

Santini described her cooking as "humanistic", meaning a cuisine with historical, emotional and anthropological depth rather than one driven by technical display. She believed in small numbers: she told The Observer in 2007 that she could not give her heart to a dish if she was cooking for more than 30 people. She often stressed tradition as something to be handed down from one generation to the next, and her family remembered her for teaching moral rigour, the ethics of work and simplicity.

As the first Italian woman chef to earn three Michelin stars, Nadia Santini became a reference point for women in haute cuisine. Anne-Sophie Pic described her as extraordinary and one of her greatest inspirations, and Angela Hartnett called her one of her heroes. Dal Pescatore's thirty unbroken years at three stars set an Italian record, and the restaurant became a model of the family-run fine dining house, with four generations of Santinis serving guests from the same farmstead on the Oglio.

First Michelin star for Dal Pescatore (1982); second star (1988); membership of Relais and Chateaux (1990) and Les Grandes Tables du Monde (1992); third Michelin star (1996), making her the first Italian woman chef with three stars; Veuve Clicquot World's Best Female Chef, The World's 50 Best Restaurants (2013); Michelin Guide Chef Mentor award (2022).

Santini appeared in Three Stars (2010), the documentary by German filmmaker Lutz Hachmeister about chefs at Michelin three-star restaurants. The Boston Globe wrote that her radiant personality and gentle, old-world approach to recipes, colleagues and clientele provided the counterpoint to the frenetic kitchens of scientist-chefs. She was also featured in French television documentaries about great chefs and in many Italian and international interviews, often alongside her mother-in-law Bruna or her son Giovanni.

Nadia Santini died at 9:00 in the morning on Monday 2 November 2026, surrounded by her family, at the age of 73 (some outlets said 72). Her husband said she had been ill, with ups and downs, for about twenty years. The family announced her death on the restaurant's Instagram account in Italian, English and French, thanking her for teaching them moral rigour, the ethics of work and simplicity, and closing: "Thank you Nadia, thank you Mamma." The specific cause of death, the place of death and funeral arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing. She is survived by her husband Antonio and sons Giovanni and Alberto.