Cooking has played a huge role in my life. Growing up in an Italian family, food was important, I was exposed to cooking before I could walk. Watching my grandmother prepare dinner for the family from my highchair, face covered in tomato sauce eating cut up spaghetti with my hands…get the picture? As time went on Nonna and I would make pasta, cookies, taralli. In no time I was preparing dinner (to the best of my ability), by thirteen I was working in the family restaurant.

Once in the restaurant, things changed. After school and on weekends, i’d help prep, mix doughs, make pasta, bread and prepare orders. Cooking didn’t seem like a career for me at that point, I was just doing what all the other kids were doing at that age, or so I thought.

College wasn’t my route, automobile mechanics school spoke to me… I dreamt of working on beautiful European sports cars, I had a glorified idea of what my future would look like. Nine months into the course I realized I was in for years of oil and tire changes, arguably a lifetime of it. So I threw in the towel, back to the restaurant…

A year passed and the chef at the time suggests I go to the prestigious french cooking school downtown, he also hands me Kitchen Confidential, a masterpiece of kitchen literature by Anthony Bourdain. I felt like I had a sense of direction, that’s when I told myself; “I’m going to cook”.

Two years of cooking school, stages in some of Montreal’s finest establishments, a new world was unfolding before me. Time to head back to the family with all of my recent discoveries. I tried to modernize, standardize and innovate, that was met with some resistance but things were good. My father and I we’re travelling to central america often to cook for Montreal’s football club and later the Canadian national team.

The pandemic changed everything, I went to work at my friend’s Italian specialty foods store for some sense of stability. There I gained a wealth of knowledge, every type of cheese, cut of pasta, tomatoes, oil, salumi, rice. Although I was stocking shelves, I created a repertoire of all things Italian and expanded my view. During that time, my sister and I began producing pasta and cookies for sale out of our mom’s apartment and later out of mine. This went on for three years, we also created products like arancini and focaccia.

That pasta making landed me a gig as a pastaio in some shmancy downtown Italian joint. For about a year me and this crazy Portugese lady (we’re great friends now) printed kilos and kilos of pasta all day long, the conditions were questionable but it molded me into the pasta maker I am today.

After that I bounced around a little, was trying to figure out a life that didn’t involve long hours and long nights behind the stove. My friend with the Italian store calls me one day and says “I’m building a kitchen and pasta lab, I want you to be the chef” funny how life works…

So that’s where I’m at now, working daytime, making food I love to eat for clients to take home and enjoy. Not to mention I’m using pasta making equipment I’ve only ever dreamed of. Surrounded by a food culture I love, speaking Italian most of the day. That’s me, one happy guy.

What feels like a lifetime in a world of food, with the help of friends, mentors and great people. My name is Alessio, Italian food and cooking speaks to me, so I want to speak to you about it.