Angela DeSantis Blanchard is the award-winning chef and recipe developer behind Cibo Seattle: an elevated dining experience custom tailored to delight and nourish her guests. Angela brings fine dining directly to your kitchen with heartfelt authenticity, an innate understanding of her ingredients, and the best part? Without the pretentiousness that often comes along with high end restaurants. She is warm, energetic, passionate and she wants to create that one bite that changes the way you think about food.
Celebrating good food is a DeSantis family tradition. Angela grew up immersed in the Seattle food industry, her Italian-American family a team of culinary entrepreneurs and adventurous eaters who believe that food is culture. She remembers spending long days in her grandfather’s butcher shop and making classic Italian sauces at the family delicatessen from a young age. They made frequent trips to Seattle’s International District for the incredible food market, finding unusual and exotic ingredients to make memorable meals together. As a kid, her brown bag lunches were the envy of the school cafeteria often made up of classic Italian sandwiches and hand-carved chocolates.
A self-taught chef, Angela credits many of her culinary techniques to her family and delights in creating her own recipes and techniques along the way. She has developed her craft over the years through career changes and life’s seasons. She spent time working as a nutritionist and in healthcare logistics but often felt she was being pulled back to the kitchen to bless people’s lives with the food that raised her. Currently, Angela provides private chef services for in-home dining experiences and boutique events.
Caviar is a rather polarizing ingredient that Angela loves to play with. She partners with Seattle Caviar, where the delicacy is humanely sourced and the quality top notch. Angela has been known to serve caviar with a dollop of creme fraiche atop a Pringles potato crisp, paired with a flute of Champagne. The juxtaposition of this bite and impeccable pairing excites curiosity and delights the senses of even the most reluctant guests. The ‘caviar Pringle’ is just one example of the playful way Angela engages with her clients and dinner guests while pulling them gently into the world of fine dining.
Angela describes one of her favorite dishes to create, Braciole, with detail and care as if preparing it on the spot. “It’s a flank steak, butterflied, beaten thin and flat, then stuffed with hard cheeses, cured meats, and herbs. Then you roll it, sear it, and braise it in Italian tomatoes.” She goes on to describe removing the steak from the braise and blending the tomatoes into a simple yet complex sauce which is then tossed with fresh pasta to serve alongside the stuffed flank steak. Braciole: An elegant, hearty dish anyone would be honored to enjoy.
Angela loves that she gets to work with amazing people and can inspire her guests to get excited about food. Her passion, work ethic, and clear love for the community that food creates make her a private chef in demand. She partners with Browne Winery for pairings and events, and is commissioned for private events in and around the greater Seattle area, as well as destination experiences in locations such as Suncadia Resort.
Her love for serving others through food makes Angela’s services through Cibo Seattle particularly special. She loves to watch her guests’ faces as they take that first bite of a course and their faces light up as though they’ve just discovered “a hug in a bite.” When she runs into guests and clients from years ago, Angela is quick to recall their dietary needs, favorite dishes and wines without skipping a beat. She really sees people and knows how to connect with them. Her hope is that each guest feels honored by the food she creates, they enjoy sharing time and space together, and that everyone knows they are welcome at her table.
Angela loves that she works with amazing people and inspires her guests to get excited about food.