Chef
Nancy Silverton
Chef & Co-owner, Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- Los Angeles, California, United States
Known for
- Pizzeria Mozza's crust-focused pizzas using California ingredients
- Osteria Mozza's mozzarella bar and Italian cuisine with Californian seasonality
- La Brea Bakery's artisan breads
i. Biography
Pastry, bread, and restaurant craft in Los Angeles have often moved through the same stations: formal training, hotel-caliber pastry discipline, market-driven cooking, and bakery production scaled without losing artisan identity. Nancy Silverton’s early posts as Pastry Chef at Michael’s in Los Angeles and Opening Pastry Chef at Spago in Los Angeles sit inside that lineage, where dessert work required both classical control and service-ready originality. “that whole image of a chef is still somebody much grander than who I feel like.” Nancy has said.
The Trajectory
Culinary formation in the classical register often starts before the first major kitchen post. Nancy Silverton studied at Sonoma State University, then at Le Cordon Bleu and Ecole Lenotre Culinary Institute, before entering Los Angeles restaurant pastry at Michael’s in Santa Monica, California, in 1979. By 1982, the Opening Pastry Chef role at Spago in Los Angeles, California, placed that training in a high-visibility service context where pastry had to operate as part of the restaurant’s identity, not as an afterthought. Restaurant pastry and bread work became a broader operating model in 1989 with the co-founding of Campanile in Los Angeles, where Nancy Silverton served as Head Pastry Chef until 2007. The same year, La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles gave that work a production and retail dimension; Silverton co-founded and managed it from 1989 to 2001, during a period when artisan bread was becoming a more visible part of American food culture. Her later roles continue across related formats: co-owner and leader at Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza since 2007, chi SPACCA since 2013, Culinary Ambassador for Farmhouse food and event space since 2019, and co-owner of Max & Helen's beginning in 2025.
Current Practice
Italian technique filtered through California sourcing remains the working frame at Osteria Mozza, Pizzeria Mozza, and chi SPACCA, where Nancy Silverton is co-owner and chef. The craft emphasis is not novelty for its own sake; it is the management of tradition, product, and restaurant format across mozzarella, pizza, pasta, and meat-centered cooking. At Osteria Mozza, the noted point of distinction is the blend of traditional Italian techniques with California’s seasonal produce. That kind of cooking depends on restraint: enough structure to respect the source cuisine, enough responsiveness to let the market shape the plate.
Accolades
Peer recognition has followed the same range of work: pastry, restaurants, hospitality, television, and long-term industry impact. Nancy Silverton received the James Beard Best Pastry Chef of the Year in 1990, the James Beard Outstanding Restaurant Award in 2001, the International Star Diamond Award for Outstanding Hospitality in 2010, the Outstanding Chef award in 2014, Eater's TV Chef of the Year in 2017, and the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2026. The through-line is durable craft across formats. Silverton’s record is built through pastry stations, bread production, restaurant ownership, Italian technique, and the practical discipline of keeping those forms legible to guests and useful to the trade.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Nancy
What does Nancy Silverton do now?
Nancy Silverton is chef at Osteria Mozza.
Where did Nancy Silverton train or study?
Nancy Silverton trained at Sonoma State University and Le Cordon Bleu.
What recognition has Nancy Silverton received?
James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award (2026).
