Ciao! I’m Stephanie, passionate baker and storyteller of all things Sicilian cuisine.
          My journey into baking started as soon as I can remember seeing flour touch water, and the wondrous moment the two married and created bread. Growing up in a Sicilian family, and having spent much of my life in Sicily-also known as the Granary of Rome, it’s no wonder the bread-romantic inside of me fell so in love with the Island of the Sun, and all of its beautiful food surrounded by-your guessed it-bread, and breadcrumbs.

         During undergrad I spent a year in Sicily, begrudgingly returning to finish my degree before promptly hopping back over the Atlantic for the school I really wanted, culinary school.  I attended Apicius International School of Culinary and Hospitality in Florence. This was the best and hardest year of my life where I truly understood the regionality and the real techniques of an Italian kitchen. The cultural difference of the North of Italy to the Islands of the South were dramatic, but I loved it all the same. From here, I went on to be a baker in New York and Pastry chef in Italian restaurants throughout the city. From the bustling Breads Bakery of union square, Lidia Bastianich’s Becco and Esca, to being the lead baker of the beautiful Bakeri in Brooklyn, and then to being the Head Baker of Eataly Downtown.  During this time I was returning to Italy as much as possible, occasionally dropping  everything to jump on a one-way flight to Italy when I was between jobs.
           During my time at Eataly, I published my first book “Sicilian Streats” , a travelogue through the entire island focusing on the immense culture of street food. I had this crazy urge to finally put this journey of my Sicily loving life into writing, and put the first book out there ever to showcase the street food, something underrated to tourism, yet remarkably important to life in Sicily.

                After writing, I realized I had become invested in storytelling and loved going deeper into Italian food roots. For the first time in my professional life I left the bakery and transitioned to the Educational Chef of Eataly, teaching all of the cooking classes and in charge of product knowledge and recipe development. Through that change I broadened my horizon of how to talk about Italian food, and how to teach people what we actually eat and cook. Even to someone who still considers spaghetti and meatballs to be authentic (it’s not) and to those Italians who’ve never left their region to see another type of cuisine in their own country. I’m lucky enough to have worked with so many Italians and chefs that I never really stopped learning.
                Inevitably, the bakery life called me back and I went over to be the Head Baker of Saraghina in Brooklyn before taking my current role as the Director of Bakery production at Tartine Bakery in California. I reside in Los Angeles with my husband, Alessandro, and our twin sons Leonardo & Francesco.

 

 

 

 

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