A Kitchen of Return

The Tuscan Kitchen Studio | Grazia Di Giorgio

We met Grazia in her new cooking studio in Lucignano, where lunch was already underway when the interview began.

A five-course meal unfolded as we spoke. For Grazia, this is the only way to understand her work: sitting at the table, tasting, slowing down, becoming part of it. We agreed.

The Piemonte–Sicily connection

Grazia grew up in Turin, where childhood unfolded quietly. There was, however, one early challenge: she was left-handed in a world that refused to accommodate it. At school, she was forced to change hands, to adapt, to correct herself.

But there was one place where none of this applied: her Sicilian grandmother’s kitchen.

In that kitchen, there were no corrections. No rules, no expectations of conformity. When something didn’t work - a pasta machine designed only for right-handed use - it was simply set aside. Her grandmother taught her instead to roll the dough by hand.

It was a place of quiet acceptance, of instinct and patience. And it is here that Grazia’s relationship with cooking began, not as technique, but as belonging.

Something good, as she says, came out of that “left-handed curse.”

On stage

Life eventually took her somewhere entirely different: the theatre.

Grazia spent years travelling across Italy with a well-known theater company, moving from stage to stage. It was a life defined by rhythm, intensity, travel and applause. It was also where she met her husband, a technician within the same company. They loved their life, until the pandemic brought everything to a halt.

Like so many others, they stopped. And in that pause, something shifted.

Return to rhythm

They restored a historic podere (farmhouse) in Tuscany and began to build a slower life, shaped by seasons rather than schedules.

Without the road, another rhythm emerged. Days were anchored in small gestures: the vegetable garden, the visits of neighbours, the passing of seasons. Guests began to arrive naturally,  first through friends, then as visitors to their small B&B. And with them came cooking, not as intention, but as something that simply began.

People didn’t only eat. They asked to learn.

And so it grew.

The Tuscan Kitchen Studio

With the Tuscan Kitchen Studio in Lucignano, Grazia has created a kitchen that feels less like a workshop and more like an extension of home.

Nothing is rushed. Recipes are not demonstrations, but shared rituals. Guests are not spectators, but participants.

A second space in Siena continues the same rhythm: cooking rooted in place, season, and presence.

From market to table

Grazia’s cooking begins long before the kitchen.

Guests are taken to local farmers’ markets in Lucignano or Siena, followed by visits to trusted producers she knows personally. She does not simply buy ingredients; she chooses them through familiarity, conversation, and trust.

Menus are never fixed. They are shaped by what the season offers that day.

From there, everything returns to the studio, where cooking begins.

Pasta stamped with memory

On the table that day, we ate handmade round pasta, shaped like small coins.

An ancient tradition once linked to noble families, pasta was stamped with a family crest — identity marked through food.

Grazia continues this practice with a small artisan who produces these stamps. In her online shop, they are available to guests — a quiet extension of the same idea: food as memory, imprint, identity.

The philosophy

What defines Grazia’s cooking is not technique, but origin.

It begins in a Sicilian grandmother’s kitchen, passes through theatre and interruption, and is shaped by rural Tuscany and the return to stability. It is formed in markets, gardens, and shared tables.

Nothing here is rushed. Nothing exists for effect.

It is cooking before performance.

Experience

Grazia is a private chef and sommelier, hosting experiences in her Tuscan Kitchen Studio near Lucignano and Siena, as well as private locations and curated retreats.

Each experience is shaped by seasonality and shared preparation — from market visits and cooking classes to private dinners in historic settings.

More information:
https://the-tuscan-kitchen-studio.sumupstore.com

photo credits: @katiejameson