Who Is Chris Santos Wife, Taryn Santos? Explore His Married Life

Posted by Zora Stowers on Sunday, May 19, 2024

51-year-old Chris Santos is a famous and multi-talented chef from New York City.

Santos is a recurring guest judge on the Food Network show Chopped. Although not a regular judge, Santos has earned enough of a following that people look forward to his appearances whenever he is not on screen. 

He is perhaps most prominent for being the former executive chef and owner of the Stanton Social in New York City's Lower East Side. He also opened Beauty & Essex, a 10,000-square-foot restaurant in the heart of the lower east side that seated 250 people.

Santos is famous for his imaginative approach to small plate-style cuisine and serves as such in his restaurant. His cooking is known for serving bold-flavored, playful dishes that draw from New York's vibrant culinary ethnicities, namely Latin, Asian and Eastern European.

Quick Facts About Chris Santos

Age:51
Net Worth:$5 Million
Profession:Chef
Nationality:American
Spouse:Natalie Makenna
Date of Birth:March 26, 1971
Place of Birth:Fall River, Massachusetts, US
Alma Mater:Johnson & Wales University
Television Shows:Chopped
Restaurants:Beauty & Essex
Years Active:2000 - Present

Who Is Chris Santos Wife, Taryn Santos?

Celebrity Chef Chris Santos was married to Taryn Santos in 2009, though the couple has divorced.

Not a lot is known about Chris Santos' relationship with Taryn Santos. It is believed that the two were dating for a long time before they tied the knot in April 2009. The most the media knows about Taryn Santos is that she was married to Chris Santos, and everything about her before and after her marriage to Santos is not publicly available.

Chris and Taryn started dating sometime in the mid-2000s, and things began getting serious soon after. The two wed on April 2009 in a small ceremony only attended by friends and family.

The only time the media reported on Chris and Taryn Santos' relationship was in an article for the New York Post on July 8, 2010.

Sadly, the only news known next is that the couple separated soon after the release of Santos's second restaurant, which is known to have been opened in late 2010. The only news about this divorce came out on November 28, 2018, in an article about Santos' weight loss. 

The article talks about how Santos, whose life primarily revolves around food, is not just the owner of multiple restaurants but also a judge on Chopped, so it makes sense that the chef has put on more than 50 pounds of extra weight during the 2010s.

Santos told the reporter that he had been in shape for most of his life before 2009. According to the chef, he took boxing incredibly seriously from 1994 to 2009 and was religious in his exercise.

Whenever he felt like he was gaining some weight through his love of food and tasty treats, he would counteract it with boxing. Something happened after 2009 that caused Santos to stop working out and pack on all his pounds.

The article briefly mentions his divorce and focuses more on Santos' statement that he thought he'd give his body a little break and focus on the restaurant as to why he gained all the weight.

It's not a complex mental tangent to make that the divorce, his focusing on his work, and gaining all of that weight might all be connected. It's also not a complex mental tangent to make that these events might have seamlessly led to each other.

Still, the chef has not explicitly stated anything along those lines, so anything anyone can say on the matter would be pure conjecture. What's more important to know is that not only has Santos lost all the weight, but he seems much happier with his life and his new wife, Natalie Makenna.

Is Chris Santos Married To Natalie Makenna?

Celebrity chef Chris Santos is married to actress Natalie Makenna whom he wed in 2022.

Natalie Makenna is an actor and opera singer based in Los Angeles who has fame for appearing in over 100 films and commercials. She is also known for hosting over fifty episodes of shows focusing on travel, music, and sports. 

She is also very acclaimed in that she has been nominated for Best Actress in a Feature Film at the 2018 Nice International Film Festival for her work in the movie Osprey. However, people might recognize her the most for her role as "Megan," the face and teeth of ACT Mouthwash.

Though not technically an A-Lister, Makenna has shared the screen with veritable actors like Al Pacino, Ryan Gosling, and Michael Fassbender.  As stated above, she is also an opera singer with an honors degree from the University of Kansas in vocal performance.

Makenna is mainly known for being a die-hard Los Angeles lover, but she was born and raised in Kansas. A fun fact about the actress is that she is a descendant of Blackbeard the Pirate and the late King of England, George III, making her a royal pirate.

She also plays drums in a Rolling Stones Cover band.

Makenna met Chris Santos when she appeared as a contestant on Chopped back in 2019, and they immediately started dating. Before Santos, Makenna was briefly married to Zane Howard Wilemon, whom she wed on September 4, 2004. They divorced soon after.

Santos and Makenna bonded over their failed marriages, one reason why they waited so long to tie the knot.

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How Much Is Chris Santos' Net Worth?

Chris Santos is a Celebrity chef who a net worth of $5 million as of 2022. 

The chef was born in 1971, and although he's well known for his loyalty to New York City, he was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. He is of mixed descent, as his mother was of Irish descent, and his father was of Portuguese ancestry.

Santos was also the youngest of four children; he had two brothers and one sister. He started working at age 13 when he landed a job in the kitchen of a small local restaurant in his hometown of Bristol, Rhode Island washing pots and pans.

Impressed by his steadfastness, the restaurant chef moved the boy from the sink to the stove, and that was where young Santos started learning how to cook in his early teens. 

While working in the kitchen, young Santos also attended Bristol High School in Bristol, Rhode Island, graduating in 1989. After graduating, young Santos started attending Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he studied the culinary arts.

He initially planned only to attend for two years, but the school awarded him a fellowship, so Santos remained in the college for two more years and studied restaurant and hotel management. He ended up graduating in 1993 with honors.

However, years later, Santos would describe himself as a self-taught chef, stating that although he appreciates his culinary art training at Johnson & Wales, he never underwent any formal training under an esteemed master chef, which is what makes him self-taught.

After graduating from Johnson & Wales, Santos moved to his beloved New York City, and within a year after graduation, the iconic Time Cafe hired him.

He quickly rose through the ranks and became an executive chef at 23, a position he retained until 1998.

In 1999, Santos decided to improve his cooking knowledge by visiting over 14 countries and 40 cities. He spent over a year in this endeavor which only furthered his passion and love for cooking. 

Santos returned to New York in the new millennium, and one of his first kitchen jobs was at Boston's French-inspired Cranebook Restaurant and Tearoom.  

He also worked as a consulting chef for Rue 57, and in November of that year, at the tender age of 29, Santos opened his first restaurant, Waynoka.

Santos was also the partner and executive chef of this restaurant, which he called a tiny "hidden gem" which only 27 seats, but he was not satisfied with just opening a restaurant. The chef soon earned a loyal following coupled with glowing reviews by publications like the New York Times.

He continued working at other restaurants, with 2003 seeing him become the executive chef at the award-winning Latin restaurant Suba.

He kept expanding his role in other restaurants as co-owner and executive chef at The Mexican Sandwich Company in Brooklyn, New York. But the chef still wanted his piece of the pie, so he opened more restaurants, with his most successful one just around the corner.

In January 2005, Santos opened his most successful restaurant, The Stanton Social.

He opened the social with partners Rich Wolf and Peter Kane to huge success. The restaurant was hugely successful and was praised by many celebrated magazines and newspapers like New York Magazine and Time Out New York.

The Stanton Social was also the restaurant that introduced Santos' experiential communal dining experience to the public alongside his expansive menu of multi-cultural small plates.

In 2007, the chef became Star Chefs Rising Star Chef and started developing a sister restaurant to the smash hit, The Stanton Social.

Though Stanton Social closed in 2018, Santos has had much success with the many other restaurants he has opened since his first hit. The most popular of these restaurants is Beauty & Essex, which opened in December 2010.

This restaurant is famous for being the most prominent restaurant Santos has opened to date and for being perennially booked.

Some FAQs

How Did Chris Santos Become Famous?

He became famous through his many restaurants and appearance on Chopped

Is Chris Santos Married?

Yes, he is married to Natalie Makenna whom he wed in 2022

Was Chris Santos Married Before?

Yes, he was married to Taryn Santos back in 2009

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