La Cucina Caldesi team

Katie Caldesi

Giancarlo Caldesi

Giancarlo loves to visit food markets to source fresh produce, it reminds him of his childhood when he was sent by his mother to fetch vegetables from the nearby fields.

Stefano Borella

Stefano has worked in many establishments over his career including “San Lorenzo”, “Savoy Hotel”, “Churchill hotel”, “Mayfair hotel”, and presently “Caldesi” restaurants. He has a passion for patisserie and Italian food which comes from his father who was Head chef at San Lorenzo. He is a former winner of the Awards of excellence in pastry in 1997 and a member of the Academy of culinary arts. Having been involved with all of the Caldesi’s projects including Katie Caldesi’s latest cookery book the “Italian cookery course”, Stefano has a wide knowledge and genuine love of Italian food.

Carolina Català-Fortuny

Carolina is originally from Spain, where she worked as a teacher for many years. Cooking and food were always major passions for her and eight years ago she retrained as a chef at the world renowned “Le Cordon Bleu” cookery school. Her career as a teacher in Spain and as a chef in London have pleasantly come together at Caldesi, where she works as the coordinator of la Cucina Caldesi and teaches as one of our in-house chefs.

Jo Hynes

Jo, the manager of La Cucina Caldesi, has spent almost 20 years in the food industry, working behind the scenes with well known chefs as their ‘right hand man’. Jo’s experience of cookery along with her ability to organise a “team of excitable Italians” ensures the smooth running of the cookery school. Her love for Italy and all things Italian grew from working at a cookery school in Orvieto, Umbria many years ago and has since spent her holidays passionately exploring, eating & wine tasting her way through Italy.

Francesca Da Ros

Francesca comes from Genoa, in Italy, where she used to work in the media industry; moving to London has been a big change in her life as well as in her career: far from the flavours of her country she rediscovered a big passion for food in particular for sustainable and ethical cooking. These new interests brought her to la Cucina Caldesi where she works in the office advising the customers and ensuring they have a great time in the kitchen whether they are shy first time cooks or big corporate groups.

Richard Bertinet

Originally from Brittany in North West France, Richard trained as a baker both in Brittany and at the Grand Moulin de Paris. His passion and knowledge of food has led him on a wonderful culinary journey, – French baker, chef and author, culminating in ‘The Bertinet Kitchen cookery school’, Bath which he successfully runs with his wife Jo.

Gennaro Contaldo

Gennaro Contaldo is one of the most respected chefs in London as well as a renowned personality in his own right. He is widely known as the Italian legend who taught Jamie Oliver all he knows about Italian cooking.

Born on the Amalfi Coast, Gennaro’s quintessentially Italian spirit and positive nature has made him a huge favourite both on TV & at la Cucina Caldesi.

Gino D’Acampo

Gino was born in Torre del Greco, Napoli where he lived with his parents and sister Marcella. His memories from childhood include living on a farm and having big family parties where all his aunties (mother had 11 sisters) would get together to cook traditional Italian food.  He inherited his grandfather’s love of cooking heading to catering college at 13yrs old, where he graduated with masters.Gino continued to develop his skills through the kitchens of restaurants in Europe, bringing him finally to England.  Gino is a member of both the Federazione Italiana Cuochi (Federation of Italian Chefs) and Associazione Professionale Cuochi Italiani (Association of professional Italian chefs).  He is a very popular chef and was crowned King of the Jungle by ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2009.   He also appears weekly on ITV’s “This Morning”.

Gino lives in north London with his wife Jessica and two sons Luciano and Rocco who are his favourite food critics. “If the food is not up to standard my boys simply spit it out and I have to find a tastier recipe combination – it’s a really rewarding challenge!”

Ursula Ferrigno

Ursula has been teaching for twenty years up and down the country and abroad. She has written seventeen cookery books, as well as writing for numerous food magazines including Taste Italia, American Gourmet and Olive.

Ursula feels if you love something it is instinctive to share and this is why she relishes teaching so much. She finds pasta making fun to teach as well as real Italian bread with crust and crumb and flavour; and adores nothing better than teaching her students how to make an array of national and regional breads from ciabatta and focaccia to volcanic stromboli.

Sophie Grigson

Sophie fell in love with Italy when she was nineteen, and the affair continues several decades later. Since then she’s written a multitude of cookbooks, including Eat Your Greens, First Time Cook and Vegetables, has presented numerous programmes on cooking and travel, including her latest “Sophie in the Souk” on the Travel Channel.

Valentina Harris

My food philosophy is to source the best available local, seasonal ingredients and then do as little as possible to them to create food that is authentic, honest and appealing. I enjoy teaching these principles in all my classes at La Cucina Caldesi.

Thane Price

Thane loves food and has been cooking and writing about it for 20 years. She started with The Daily Telegraph where for 12 years she was the food writer for the Weekend section. Thane has written 12 books the most recent of which was translated into 5 languages. She open and ran the acclaimed Aldeburgh Cookery School, which consistently was rated one of the top 10 cooking schools in Europe. She has recently returned to live in London and continues to write, teach and eat.

Viviana Romanori

Viviana was born in Serramazzoni, in the Apennines of Modena and grew up with the tradition of Italian farmhouse cooking. She is an Italian language teacher and she is fond of gastronomic culture. She loves cooking and teaching the traditional recipes from Emilia.

Franco Taruschio OBE

Franco Taruschio, born in the Marche region of Italy but Wales has been his home for many years. He created the internationally acclaimed Walnut Tree Inn, Abergavenny.

“Retiring” in 2001 he now enjoys teaching cookery to enthusiastic cooks in the U.K and Italy.

In February 2003 Franco received the OBE in recognition of his services to the culinary industry.