the pasta artist
London
Have you been to Italy and loved the fresh pasta you ate there? Would you love
to keep eating that yumminess at home, but can’t find the same quality and
delicious taste anywhere else? Don’t worry: you are in the right place! Ciao!
I’m Silvana, a 4th generation artisan pasta maker from Naples, currently living
in London. My great grandad started a pastificio in Torre Annunziata (a town
next to Pompeii) back in 1893. His daughter, my beloved nonna Rosa, took over in
1927. I came in the picture a several decades later: when I was a teensy weensy
5 year old, my nonna decided I was a bit of an handful, and put me to make pasta
in order to save the house from destruction! As I grew up, I also helped in the
pastificio, until it sadly closed in 1995. I started teaching how to make pasta
quite a few years later, in 2013, because I was frustrated by the confusion and
misinformation there is around pasta, pasta making, and Italian food in general.
To this day, my biggest achievements are: appearing on BBC2 as a pasta expert,
publishing recipe on The Local Italy, holding pasta making demonstrations in
Harrods, and being included in a roundup of best workshops in Britain by the
newspaper “i.”