Cucina Paradiso

Donato De Santis was born in Milan in 1964. He grew up in La Puglia, southern Italy, where his ancestors lived since 1399. He was trained in his home country and has been dedicated to professional cooking since 1980, with his first steps In the kitchen of L’Antica Osteria del Teatro in Piacenza next to the famous Georges Cogny and then in restaurants and private houses of the Italian rivieras.   He worked in major restaurants in the cities of Los Angeles (Primi, Un Ristorante), Santa Monica (Valentino), Hollywood (Chianti & Cucina), Chicago (Bice), Palm Beach – where he was in charge of opening Bice – and Miami (Bice of Coconut Grove). His creativity in the kitchen led him to meet rich and famous and was finally hired as personal chef by the designer Gianni Versace for his mansion Casa Casuarina and in New York. He settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2000 and taught in various places, among them at Gato Dumas Colegio de Cocineros. For two years he managed the kitchen of the restaurant Verace, until February 2005.