i. Biography
Modern Adriatic cuisine at Nostrano in Pesaro is built from a working premise of the coast: land and sea are not separate chapters. Since 2015, Executive Chef and owner Stefano Ciotti has used the restaurant as the clearest vehicle for that position, with local ingredients, modern technique, supply-chain attention, simplicity, harmony, and elegance kept inside the same frame. The Adriatic table carries a practical inheritance: the same communities have worked as farmers and fishermen. In Ciotti’s cooking, that history is handled as structure rather than decoration. Field and water are treated as shared material, with contemporary execution used to clarify the relationship rather than cover it.
Career Arc
Professional formation began with Riccione Hospitality School, giving Ciotti early contact with the discipline and pace of kitchen work. The next layer came in the kitchens of renowned chefs Gino Angelini and Vincenzo Cammerucci, followed by work with Luigi Sartini at Taverna Righi (1992–1995), where craft, consistency, and refined service became part of the working base. Italian cuisine was then studied through several rooms and regions. Ciotti worked at the restaurant at Don Alfonso in Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, Italy, then at the restaurant at Armani Café in Paris, France, where Italian cooking operated in an international setting. He also worked at the restaurant at Ristorante Diana in Riccione, Italy, before becoming Executive Chef at Carducci 76/Vicolo Santa Lucia in Cattolica, Italy (from 2004). The Carducci 76/Vicolo Santa Lucia period gave Ciotti a platform for more defined authorship: precision, personality, and repeatable service under pressure. From 2012, Urbino dei Laghi – Restaurant and Naturally Pizza in Tenuta Santi Giacomo e Filippo, near Urbino, Italy, widened the context to landscape, hospitality, and a broader idea of nourishment. International work later extended the same Adriatic grammar outside Italy. From 2024, Ciotti became michelin-starred chef at BRAVA by Stefano Ciotti at The Bodrum EDITION in Bodrum, Turkey, carrying the same clarity of land-sea balance into a resort context. The current body of work includes Nostrano, where Ciotti is chef and co-founder since 2015, and restaurant of Veritas, opened since 2019. Across those projects, the constant is a cuisine of place handled with modern hands, restraint, and a clear eye for ingredient origin.
Where They Are Now
Nostrano di Stefano Ciotti opened in Pesaro in 2015 with Giorgia. The restaurant now operates from the idea that Adriatic-coast inhabitants have historically been both farmers and fishermen; in Ciotti’s hands, that premise governs sourcing, handling, and composition rather than sitting as a narrative on the menu. The Adriatic is not reduced to fish, and the hinterland is not reduced to meat, vegetables, or grains. Nostrano works at the seam between country cooking and coastal cooking, treating them as one language. Memory is present, but the cooking is not tied to nostalgia; invention is used when it serves the ingredient and the line of the meal. Menu construction draws on traditional methods and cultures to make creative, modern cuisine. The stated tools are playful dish composition, harmonious progression across courses, simple elegance, ingredient study, memory, respect during cooking, modern techniques, and homemade procedures. The craft value is balance: movement from course to course, confidence in the product, and enough restraint to let clarity do the work. The specialty is Modern Adriatic cuisine that balances land and sea. At the table, country cooking and coastal cooking are handled as one working vocabulary, shaped by local habits of the coastline and presented in a contemporary register. Veritas inside Al Messila – A Luxury Collection Resort & Spa in Doha, Qatar, opened in 2019.
Distinctions
Stefano Ciotti has received Emerge — Best Emerging Chef in Northern Italy (2009). Recognition has followed specific stages of the work: Best Emerging Chef in Northern Italy (2009), First Michelin star for Carducci 76/Vicolo Santa Lucia (2010), and Tre Spicchi for Urbino dei Laghi (2013). Read together, the honors mark a progression from disciplined training and serious kitchens toward a personal Adriatic cuisine grounded in place, technique, and restraint.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Stefano
What is Stefano Ciotti's present role?
Stefano Ciotti is Executive Chef and owner of Nostrano.
Where did Stefano Ciotti train or study?
Stefano Ciotti trained at Riccione Hospitality School.
What recognition has Stefano Ciotti received?
First Michelin star for Carducci 76/Vicolo Santa Lucia (2010).
