Nancy Silverton changed the way Americans think about bread. She co-founded La Brea Bakery, opened Campanile with her then-husband Mark Peel, and built the Mozza restaurant group into one of Los Angeles’s most enduring culinary institutions. In 2014, the James Beard Foundation named her Outstanding Chef — the highest individual honor in American food.

Her professional achievements fill pages. Her personal life, by contrast, stays mostly behind closed doors. Anyone searching for Nancy Silverton’s son will find two: Benjamin Silverton-Peel and Oliver Silverton-Peel. She also has a daughter, Vanessa Silverton-Peel. All three were raised in a Los Angeles household where both parents ran legendary kitchens, and all three chose to keep a low profile despite growing up under an unusual spotlight.

Mark Peel’s sudden death from cancer in June 2021 brought the family into sharper public focus. Vanessa confirmed her father’s passing, and Silverton’s grief was visible on social media. For people searching for information about Nancy Silverton’s son, the real story is one of family shaped by food, ambition, divorce, and loss.

Who Are Nancy Silverton’s Sons?

Nancy Silverton’s son — or rather, sons — are Benjamin Silverton-Peel and Oliver Silverton-Peel. Both were born during Silverton’s marriage to chef Mark Peel, and both carry the hyphenated Silverton-Peel surname — a deliberate choice that reflects both sides of a culinary partnership that shaped Los Angeles dining for two decades.

Benjamin Silverton-Peel

Benjamin Silverton-Peel is one of Nancy Silverton’s two sons. He grew up in Los Angeles during the 1990s and early 2000s, a period when his parents were simultaneously running Campanile restaurant and La Brea Bakery out of the same building on La Brea Avenue. That household was, by any reasonable measure, one of the most culinarily saturated environments a child could experience in late twentieth-century California.

Benjamin has maintained a private life away from the food media spotlight. He has not pursued a high-profile culinary career or public platform, which is consistent with the broader pattern among Silverton and Peel’s children — all three have chosen privacy over the attention that comes with having two celebrity-chef parents. A similar family dynamic plays out in Aarti Sequeira and Brendan McNamara’s household, where their daughters stay out of the public eye despite both parents working in entertainment.

Oliver Silverton-Peel

Oliver Silverton-Peel is Nancy Silverton’s other son. Unlike many children of famous chefs who either follow their parents into kitchens or are simply never mentioned publicly, Oliver has left a small but verifiable public trace: he graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Mark Peel posted about the graduation on Facebook, writing that the whole family traveled to Portland to celebrate — a photo that included Nancy Silverton, Vanessa, Oliver, and Benjamin together.

Reed College is a rigorous liberal arts school known for its emphasis on independent thinking and academic depth. Oliver’s attendance there suggests intellectual ambition, though what he pursued professionally after graduation remains private. That graduation photo, casual as it was, is one of the rare public glimpses into the Silverton-Peel family as a unit.

Nancy Silverton’s Children: The Complete Family Picture

Nancy Silverton has three children with her former husband, chef Mark Peel: Vanessa, Benjamin, and Oliver. All three use the surname Silverton-Peel. They were raised primarily in Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s, when their parents were building what would become two of the city’s most celebrated food institutions.

Vanessa Silverton-Peel

Vanessa Silverton-Peel is Nancy Silverton’s daughter and, among the three children, the one who has appeared most visibly in public-facing moments. When Mark Peel died on June 20, 2021, it was Vanessa who confirmed her father’s passing to the press. She told reporters that Peel had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer just nine days before his death — a timeline so compressed that the family barely had time to process the diagnosis before facing the loss.

Vanessa’s role as the family’s public voice during that period was notable. Silverton herself addressed the loss on Instagram, but it was Vanessa who handled the direct communication with journalists and news outlets covering her father’s death. That dynamic — a daughter stepping forward so her mother wouldn’t have to — says something about the family’s internal structure, even if neither Vanessa nor Silverton has elaborated on it publicly.

Growing Up in a Dual-Chef Household

Few American children have grown up in a home where both parents ran nationally recognized restaurants simultaneously. Nancy Silverton was building La Brea Bakery into a household name — she essentially launched the artisan bread movement in the United States — while Mark Peel ran one of the most critically acclaimed kitchens in Los Angeles at Campanile. The restaurant operated from 1989 until 2012, meaning the Silverton-Peel children spent their entire childhood and adolescence in its orbit.

Silverton has spoken in interviews about the brutal hours the restaurant industry demands. Pre-dawn starts at the bakery. Late nights at the restaurant. Weekends consumed by service. For a parent, those hours extract a real cost, and Silverton has never pretended otherwise. She has described the tension between professional ambition and family presence with characteristic bluntness — no romanticized narrative about having it all, just an honest acknowledgment that the trade-offs were genuine.

The children grew up surrounded by flour, fire, and the constant motion of professional kitchens. Whether that exposure shaped their own career paths or pushed them in entirely different directions, none of them have said publicly. The silence itself is informative — it suggests a family that drew a clear line between the public restaurant world and private home life.

Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel: The Marriage That Built an Empire

Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel didn’t just share a marriage — they shared a culinary vision that reshaped Los Angeles dining. Their professional partnership produced Campanile and La Brea Bakery, two institutions that put California on the national food map. Their personal partnership produced three children and lasted roughly two decades before ending in divorce around 2010.

How They Built Campanile and La Brea Bakery

Both Silverton and Peel trained under giants. Silverton studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London and worked under Wolfgang Puck at Spago starting in 1982, where she became the pastry chef. Peel cooked at Chez Panisse under Alice Waters and also worked at Spago — which is where the two met.

In 1989, they opened Campanile together in a historic Charlie Chaplin building on La Brea Avenue. The restaurant became an instant critical darling, earning praise for its marriage of refined technique and accessible California ingredients. That same year, Silverton launched La Brea Bakery in the adjoining space — a project born from her obsession with naturally leavened bread that would grow into a nationally distributed brand.

Campanile won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2001. Silverton had already won the JBF Outstanding Pastry Chef award in 1991. Two James Beard Awards from one building, earned by one married couple — that kind of concentration of talent and recognition is nearly unprecedented in American dining.

The Divorce and Its Aftermath

Silverton and Peel divorced around 2010, ending both their marriage and their restaurant partnership. Peel continued running Campanile on his own until it closed in 2012. Silverton had already moved on to her next chapter — the Mozza restaurant group, which she launched with Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich. Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza opened in the mid-2000s and quickly became Los Angeles staples.

Neither Silverton nor Peel spoke publicly about how the divorce affected Vanessa, Benjamin, and Oliver. The co-parenting arrangement, whatever its specifics, appears to have kept both parents present in their children’s lives. Mark Peel’s Facebook posts over the years occasionally featured family moments — including that Reed College graduation trip with all three children and Silverton — suggesting a family that maintained bonds even after the marriage ended.

Mark Peel’s Death and the Family’s Grief

Mark Peel died on June 20, 2021, at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 66 years old. The diagnosis — an aggressive form of cancer — had come only nine days earlier. There was almost no warning, no extended battle, no public preparation. Vanessa Silverton-Peel confirmed her father’s passing to the press, and the news sent a wave of grief through the Los Angeles food community.

Peel had been a fixture in that world for four decades. He worked at Ma Maison under Wolfgang Puck, cooked at Chez Panisse, appeared on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, and built Campanile into a culinary landmark. His death was covered by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Deadline, and dozens of food publications.

Silverton posted about Peel on Instagram — a rare, unguarded moment from a chef who guards her personal life carefully. The loss hit the entire family publicly in a way that nothing in their previous decades of relative privacy had. For Benjamin, Oliver, and Vanessa, the grief was compounded by its speed. Nine days from diagnosis to death leaves no room for gradual acceptance.

Nancy Silverton on Motherhood and the Restaurant Life

Silverton has never packaged motherhood into a tidy narrative. In interviews spanning decades — including her 2017 appearance on Netflix’s Chef’s Table (Season 3, Episode 3) — she has been direct about the costs of a restaurant career on family time. The hours are inhuman. The weekends disappear. The phone calls from school come when you’re elbow-deep in dough at 4 a.m.

Born on June 20, 1954, in Los Angeles, Silverton grew up in the San Fernando Valley before studying at Le Cordon Bleu in London. Her mother, Doris Silverton, was a writer for the soap opera General Hospital; her father, Larry, was a lawyer. The culinary ambition was entirely self-generated — and the intensity she brought to her career was never going to coexist easily with conventional family rhythms.

What sets Silverton apart from many public figures in similar positions is her refusal to pretend the balance was seamless. She didn’t claim to have cracked some secret code of work-life harmony. She did both — raised three children and built a series of nationally significant food businesses — and she has been honest about the fact that doing both meant neither got her undivided attention all the time.

Today, Silverton continues to lead the Mozza Group, which includes Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza, Mozza2Go, and Chi Spacca in Los Angeles. Her children are adults now, living their own lives largely outside the public eye. The family’s decision to use the hyphenated Silverton-Peel surname — rather than choosing one parent’s name over the other — speaks to something durable about the family unit, even after divorce and death.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Nancy Silverton’s son?

Nancy Silverton’s son Benjamin Silverton-Peel and son Oliver Silverton-Peel are her two sons with ex-husband chef Mark Peel. Both were raised in Los Angeles. Oliver is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Benjamin has maintained a fully private life.

How many children does Nancy Silverton have?

Nancy Silverton has three children with her former husband Mark Peel: Vanessa Silverton-Peel, Benjamin Silverton-Peel, and Oliver Silverton-Peel. All three use the hyphenated Silverton-Peel surname.

Who was Nancy Silverton married to?

Nancy Silverton was married to chef Mark Peel. Together they co-founded Campanile restaurant and La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles in 1989. They divorced around 2010. Peel died on June 20, 2021, at age 66 from an aggressive form of cancer diagnosed just nine days before his death.

What happened to Mark Peel?

Mark Peel died on June 20, 2021, in a Los Angeles hospital at age 66. He was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer only nine days before his death. His daughter Vanessa Silverton-Peel confirmed the news to the press. Peel had been a pioneering figure in California cuisine for four decades.

Does Nancy Silverton still own Mozza?

Yes. Nancy Silverton continues to lead the Mozza Group, which includes Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza, Mozza2Go, and Chi Spacca in Los Angeles. She received the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef award in 2014 and was featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table in 2017.

What awards has Nancy Silverton won?

Nancy Silverton won the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Pastry Chef award in 1991 and the Outstanding Chef award in 2014 — the highest individual honor the foundation gives. Campanile, the restaurant she co-founded with Mark Peel, won the JBF Outstanding Restaurant award in 2001.

Are Nancy Silverton’s children involved in the restaurant industry?

None of Nancy Silverton’s three children — Vanessa, Benjamin, or Oliver — have pursued high-profile careers in the restaurant industry. All three maintain private lives. Oliver attended Reed College, a liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon, but his professional path after graduation is not publicly known.