Elisa Da Prato is an Italian-American chef whose cooking is rooted in the traditions of Lucca, Tuscany, and shaped by years spent living between Italy and the United States. Raised between El Paso, Texas, and the medieval town of Barga, she developed a culinary style that draws equally from family recipes, seasonal ingredients, and the wild landscapes of the Tuscan countryside. Ancient Roman cookery, regional folklore, fermentation, botanicals, and honey have become recurring themes throughout her work.
A self-taught chef with a background in filmmaking, Da Prato first gained attention in Brooklyn through an intimate supper club that brought artists, musicians, and strangers together around a shared table for multicourse dinners. The project became the foundation for a series of pop-ups before she relocated to Tuscany, where she opened Elisa in Barga in 2019. Although the restaurant closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, it helped establish her reputation for interpreting traditional Tuscan mountain fare through her distinctive botanical lens.
She later returned to New York as executive chef of Etrusca, a Stone Street restaurant that earned critical acclaim for its contemporary approach to Tuscan cuisine during its brief run. Following its closure, Da Prato moved back to Lucca, where she worked as a private chef and continued developing recipes and preserves inspired by the natural world, while staging pop-ups in Los Angeles.
Today, Da Prato is the chef behind Da Prato Ristorante in Downtown Los Angeles. Her menus remain deeply connected to the cooking of Lucca while embracing the bounty of Southern California’s farmers’ markets. Handmade pasta, highly seasonal produce, and wood-fired cooking come together in a style she describes as botanically driven and cosmically inspired.
