Chef and founder of Santi restaurant in Geyserville

Thomas Oden, a chef who founded Santi restaurant in Geyserville in 2000 with chef Franco Dunn, died Aug. 26 at his Oakland home after a two-year battle with cancer. He had just turned 61.

Oden, who retired from Santi in 2006, coined the restaurant's motto: "Setting Italian cooking back 75 years."

The visionary chef proved to have an eye on the future as well, inspiring an influx of authentic, Italian restaurants in Sonoma County while reinventing sleepy Geyserville as a Wine Country destination.

Oden and Dunn "put Geyserville on the map, long before the casino was there," said Santi's current owner, Doug Swett. "You can make a case that they spawned Diavola and some of the tasting rooms here as well."

He was surrounded by family and friends, including his father, his daughter, and his partner for the last six years, Laura Parker.

A Renaissance man who loved to work with his hands, Oden reinvented himself throughout his lifetime as a ceramicist, carpenter and chef.

"He really was the perfect combination of scientist and artist," Parker said. "He was very interested in the whole chemistry of cooking as well as the art of it."

Born Aug. 1, 1948, in Chicago to an engineer and a bookkeeper, Oden grew up in the San Fernando Valley and graduated from San Francisco State University with two bachelor's degrees, in mathematics and psychology.

After college, he launched a career as a ceramic artist in Berkeley and served as director of the ASUC Art Studio on the UC Berkeley campus. His interest in food was sparked by the food revolution of the early 1970s in the Bay Area.

In 1986, he left Berkeley to spend a year in Italy, where he learned to cook under many chefs, including mentor Franco Colombani of Il Sole in Maleo, near Milan.

After returning to the U.S., he worked at sevaral restaurant kitchens in Los Angeles before moving to Healdsburg in 1991. He served as sous chef at Madrona Manor in 1992, then worked as executive chef at Jordan Winery for seven years.

At Jordan, he worked alongside Dunn, and the two chefs found they shared a lot in common: Not only their Italian heritage but a desire to preserve the old ways. Together they dreamed of opening a small, seasonal restaurant like the ones found in the Italian countryside.

"We didn't want to modernize Italian cooking," Dunn explained. "We wanted to have it the way it was ... roots, regional cooking, from all over Italy."

Following their passion, the chefs renovated the landmark Catelli's the Rex space in downtown Geyserville and reopened it in May 2000 as Taverna Santi, a seasonal Italian eatery with a 30-seat bar, brick walls and unusual dishes like Trippi alla Romana.

One of the first dishes on the menu was Spaghettini Calabrese, a recipe that came from Oden's grandmother. The popular pasta proved never left the menu.

"It's made with slow-cooked pork and beef ribs," Dunn said. "We easily sold more of that than anything else."

Along with Dunn, Oden served as a taster on the California Olive Oil Council Tasting Panel since its inception. The panel certifies olive oil as extra virgin through careful tasting and flaw detection.

In addition to Parker, Oden is survived by his father, Van Oden of Oakland; daughter Flora de Tournay-Oden, who attends Simmons College in Boston; sister Patty Oden Main of La Ca?da; half-brother Michael Oden of Ukiah; and a nephew.

A memorial service will be held noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 11 at the Fernwood Memorial Cemetery, 301 Tennessee Valley Road, Mill Valley.