I'm finding myself needing to reflect and get back to basics,” said Colón, the executive chef of La Padrona, a Michelin-recommended high-end Italian restaurant in Boston’s Back Bay. “It’s going back to the trip I took with the company before we opened the restaurant. We started off in Piedmont, went down south and ended in Naples. It was a beautifully inspiring and yet so simple and warming experience. It’s really the foundation of what La Padrona tries to do.”

Her path took her to Vicki Lee’s, where she was the bakery’s front-of-house manager, to Figs in Beacon Hill, where she prepared salads and calamari as a garde-manger, and then to Porto in the Back Bay, where she climbed the ranks from line cook to sous chef to executive chef, working alongside James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur Jody Adams. It was Adams who brought her on at La Padrona as executive chef. In a city well known for Italian American cuisine, La Padrona stands out. Lauded as “Boston’s new Italian masterpiece” by Forbes, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Guide last year, putting it on a short and coveted list of Boston restaurants to earn recognition from Michelin, the gold standard in the restaurant industry.

Dishes include gem clams and bone marrow, Wagyu beef carpaccio, rabbit ragu fazzoletti and a 40-ounce bistecca alla Fiorentina, for $225. “You might not see meatballs on the menu at La Padrona, but you are going to see beautifully composed bucatini with a smoked pomodoro sauce that tweaks it and elevates it and takes it somewhere different but super familiar,” Colón said.

Colón will be participating in the Nantucket Wine & Food Festival’s Island Gala at Bartlett’s Farm and the GAJA Wine Dinner. She shared a simplified version of La Padrona’s signature tagliatelle Emilia-Romagna for our June issue.