About Vittoria

Vittoria Veltri is a Calabrian-born chef and the founder of Pasta & Play — London's private Italian culinary experience. Culinary school trained, with eleven years running her own company, she has curated culinary experiences at Soho House, Birch (founded by Chris Penn, former MD of Ace Hotel London), and Airbnb. Her work has been featured in The First Bite. She left a career in law to return to what she has always known: that the most important things happen around a table.

As seen in: The First Bite

"I am Vittoria, the founder of Pasta&Play. I created this space to bridge the gap between the precision of a busy professional life and the raw, visceral beauty of Southern Italian heritage."

The Roots

Most people imagine Calabria as sun and sand. My childhood was the Sila mountains — green, wet, bitterly cold winters, and a way of life built entirely around the table.

My most visceral memory is the annual ritual of 'u puorcu — the pig killing. As a child I was captivated by the intensity of it: a week of communal labour turning an animal into the sausages and preserves that would feed the family for a year. Nothing was wasted. Every part was honoured. I learned the zero-waste philosophy long before it had a name. And I learned that food, at its most serious, is not a hobby — it is how you survive.

The Detour

I followed the path that made others proud: a law degree, a Master's in International Relations, a career in London as a tax advisor. From the outside, it looked right. From the inside, I was disappearing. By thirty I was consumed by anxiety and panic attacks, losing myself behind a desk.

It was motherhood, therapy, and a return to the kitchen that brought me back. The corporate world offered structure. The kitchen offered healing.

Pasta & Play

I founded Pasta & Play in 2015 — not as a cookery school, but as a reclamation. A reclamation of the kitchen as a place of dignity, craft, and genuine human connection. In an increasingly isolated world, I believe the table is the last sanctuary. It is where we become present, where we talk to our children, where we remember who we are.

What I offer is not a class. It is a sensory journey — handmade pasta from scratch, a table styled with vintage linens from my Nonna, hand-drawn menus, and the warmth of a Calabrian kitchen transported entirely to yours. Every detail is intentional. Every experience is built around you.

Soul over scale — I would rather six people leave a session changed than a thousand scroll past a photograph of it.