The story of the Santini family starts in 1925 with Antonio Santini, my husband’s grandfather, coming back from the Great War with his wife Teresa – he was a fisherman and was to become a hotelier. With his son Giovanni, my father-in-law, and his wife, Bruna, my mother-in-law, he turned the family home into a restaurant. I met Antonio when we both were studying political and food science in Milan. We married in 1974 and went on honeymoon to France: it was a revelation to us. We discovered the art of good living and fine cuisine. We met great chefs and, back home again, wanted to do the same things as them. Our two sons Giovanni and Alberto are passionate, in their turn, about cuisine. The eldest, Giovanni, after studying Food Sciences at University, decided to take his turn at the ovens with me and my mother-in-law Bruna.At Dal Pescatore, our cuisine focuses on the essentials and aims to make the most of the finest natural produce.In short, our cuisine is a constant search for the truth: a truth that balances simplicity and the enhancement of natural produce.
It’s a product that offers a wide range of possibilities. We use it with pasta, risotto, certain egg dishes, white truffle and baked vegetables. One of our house specialties is thin Parmigiano Reggiano biscuits.
The Parmesan cheese that we use at Dal Pescatore comes from Solignano, a little town at 750 meters altitude. We work with a cheesemaker called Auricchio, whose farm enjoys an extraordinary location in the heart of the mountains.
I first really found out about Parmesan cheese when my grandfather Giovanni took my brother Alberto and me to a producer in Parma. Right away I was fascinated by the process of making the cheese.