Chef Odette Fada always knew that she wanted to become a chef. Growing up in Brescia, a city 150 miles outside Milan, she would make pasta and risotto using vegetables from her family’s garden and crostate with her mother’s homemade jams. “I loved to cook and bake for all five of my brothers and sisters,” she says.

At age 13, already passionate about cooking as a career, Fada persuaded her parents to allow her to attend the Instituto Professionale Alberghiero in Iseo, the region’s most prestigious training school for the culinary and hospitality industry. After the graduation, Fada helped her brother open a trattoria in Brescia. She then moved on to work at some of Italy’s highest rated restaurants, including Ristorante Castello Malvezzi in Brescia, Ristorante Vissani in Baschi and Convivio Vissani in Rome.

While working as chef de cuisine at Convivio, she met the late Italian restaurateur Mauro Vincenti, whose Rex Il Ristorante in Los Angeles had already become one of the most famous and innovative Italian restaurants in America. Vincenti was so impressed with the young chef’s abilities that he asked her to come to California and take over as his chef. For the next five years Fada introduced her style of refined regional cooking and earned Rex accolades from both customers and the media, including the Los Angeles Times’ highest rating. She also created high-profile dinners for the entertainment industry, such as the Grammy Awards dinners for over 1,000 guests each time, for which she was responsible three years in a row.

She joined San Domenico NY as Executive Chef in 1996. She has been named one of the best Italian chefs by Wine Spectator and was the winner of the White Truffle Competition in 1999. Fada’s refined style of cooking perfectly matches the culinary philosophy at San Domenico NY. Her focus on primary ingredients results in creations characterized by intense, pure taste. Regional Italian dishes are presented with her trademark simplicity and elegance.

In December 2001, Odette was a featured chef during the Gourmet Experience weekend organized by Gourmet magazine at Copia, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa, California. She was paired with Alain Ducasse for a demonstration, and other participating chefs were Nobu Matsuhisa, Rocco di Spirito, Ferran Adria, and Thomas Keller.