Ciao, Maria: local chef to cook at Winter Olympics in Italy

“An army moves on its stomach,” so the proverb goes.

For local chef Maria Fraser, the army she is about to feed moves on skis and snowboards.

Fraser, owner of The Cafe on 26 in Ocean View, is trading her tiny restaurant for the opportunity of a lifetime: working as a chef at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy. The games begin Friday, Feb. 6.

“There are some of the most famous 5-star chefs in America, and little old me,” Fraser said.

Fraser left Jan. 19 for her six-week assignment at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Instead of serving dozens in Ocean View, she will be feeding thousands of athletes and the NBC broadcast crew.

Fraser will be working in the kitchen at the Livigno Snow Park, near the Swiss border. That venue will host snowboard and freestyle skiing competitions.

“I’ve never been to Italy or even abroad. This is a huge first-time experience for me,” Fraser said. “I’ve had a passport my whole life and never used it. When I’m actually at the airport, I’ll probably have a panic attack, ‘Oh my God, I’m getting on a plane to Italy.’”

For Fraser, the road to Italy began with truffles.

Carlo Zarri, a world-renowned truffle chef, has been the culinary director for the Winter and Summer Olympics since 2004.

Zarri is from Northern Italy and has a restaurant not far from the Olympic venues. 

He comes to the U.S. to host truffle dinners every year.

Fraser said she was able to get him to come to Cafe on 26 in 2018 for the first time, thanks to two of her customers.

“Richard and Marie follow him around. They asked him at a dinner in Williamsburg, Va., if he would come here. He said yes,” Fraser said.

Fraser said Zarri is a rock star in Italy - “stella del rock.”

She said when he comes to Cafe on 26, it means two days of prep and a lot of nerves.

“I’m so nervous working with him. I’m watching him and trying not to cut my finger off. And, we’re cooking in grams. I’m looking at my phone trying to [convert] ounces to grams,” she said.

Besides not cutting off her finger, Fraser must have impressed the rock star.

During his last visit in 2024, he invited her to be on his 2026 Winter Olympics culinary team.

“He started to tell me about it, all about what he does, and I was like, ‘I think he’s serious about this,’” Fraser said.

She started filling out forms last spring and got the official OK in late fall. She will join other American chefs with whom Zarri works on his truffle dinner tours.

Fraser said she knows she’ll serve as a prep-line chef. But she won’t know the menu or what shift she is working until she gets boots – snow boots – on the ground.

“I can’t wait to see the kitchen and logistics of everything. Carlo kept saying, ‘Remember, this is for thousands of people,’” she said. “I can only guess I’ll be doing one thing, unlike here, where you’re cooking and doing everything.”

Fraser said she grew up watching the Olympics, especially winter sports like skiing and figure skating.

She also grew up in the kitchen.

“I learned a lot from my mom; I was a mom cook. Then, when Rachael Ray started, and she’s self-taught, just loves to cook, I said, ‘If she can do it, I can do it,’” Fraser said.

Fraser is a Wilmington native who moved to the Delaware beaches in 1978. 

She spent the first part of her career as a bartender, server and manager – but not a chef – at places like The Starboard in Dewey Beach and the old Country Squire in Rehoboth Beach.

Fraser opened The Cafe on 26 in 2010.

She also owned a landscaping business and had a real estate license, both of which she gave up to devote 100 percent of her energy to making her restaurant dream work.

“I put my heart and soul into this, and it’s not going to fail,” she said.

Fraser will leave The Cafe on 26 in the reliable hands of her managers and other chefs while she’s gone.

She is hoping to learn a lot about Northern Italian cooking and bring those dishes back to Southern Delaware.

“My goal is to take it all in and learn all their homemade dishes – it’s a lot of potatoes and cabbage, not all spaghetti and meatballs – and bring it back here and have many wine and Italian dinners,” she said.

Fraser said she also hopes she’ll get some time off from the Olympics kitchen to take in the whole experience.

“I want to meet all the international people, the athletes and their families, and maybe Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. And George Clooney lives right down the road,” she said with a smile.

Fraser said if it all goes well, she hopes to be invited to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“It will be interesting to see how something huge like this runs. I’m so little, I don’t even know what it’s like to work in a restaurant that seats 300. I’m so excited,” she said.