Antonia Klugmann

The Path

At L'Argine a Vencò, Antonia Klugmann works with a clear regional base, using it as a starting point rather than an endpoint. The cooking is rooted in land and season, and it is built to move beyond repetition without losing contact with where it comes from.

The Work Today

At L'Argine a Vencò, the regional grammar is present, but it is not left intact and unexamined. Antonia Klugmann turns it into dishes that are innovative and sophisticated while still remaining direct in their appeal. The work is spare without being plain: each plate is set up to let flavor carry the weight, with composition doing its job quietly. That restraint is part of the structure of the cooking. It is measured rather than crowded, refined without becoming distant, and tied to place without becoming static. Antonia Klugmann edits as much as she adds, keeping ingredients recognizable while drawing them into something more precise. The result is cooking that stays close to the countryside that informs it, even as it reaches for a more exact finish. The work is also explicitly unfinished. Antonia Klugmann says it is always moving, and that idea runs through the table. “My cuisine is always in progress and changing, because I’m changing.” Read that way, the dishes are not fixed statements but active exchanges between chef and ingredient, memory and present tense, region and change.

Signature

Antonia's signature dishes include Lamb with nettles and smoked herring and asparagus and beetroot gnocchi. Taken together, they map the range of the cooking: earthy and exact, closely aligned with seasonal produce, and willing to create contrast through texture and placement rather than excess.

In Their Words “I think that beauty helps the guests and helps me to be inspired by the ingredients.” “My cuisine is always in progress and changing, because I’m changing.”

Acclaim

The award sits alongside the larger arc: Trieste in 1979, Lovaria in 2006, and the 2014 arrival in Vencò. Read together, those dates trace a life in motion, from one place to another, and toward a way of cooking that keeps returning to the countryside while refusing to stand still. The story is one of progression rather than arrival, of a chef-owner whose work continues to evolve without severing its ties to origin.