Carla Capalbo

Carla was born in New York City to a theatrical family and brought up in Paris and London. After getting a degree in art history, she made sculpture in London, wrote about design, and later worked in Manhattan as a food and interiors stylist for photography, for clients that included the New York Times. She moved to Italy in 1989 and worked as the Milan correspondent for Vogue Décoration before writing her first cookbooks on Italian food. Her spirit of adventure led her to undertake three personal and detailed guides to the food and wine culture of Italy. The first was The Food and Wine Lover’s Companion to Tuscany, which took three years to research and write (Chronicle Books, 1998, shortlisted for Food Book of the Year by the Guild of Food Writers). That was followed by The Food and Wine Guide to Naples and Campania, an equally long and involved project that took her to the south of Italy for three years. This book was illustrated with hundreds of her photographs and won a coveted Gourmand international award. Carla’s latest book, on the Collio winemaking region of Italy, won the André Simon Memorial Award for Best Wine Book 2009, and was a finalist for a Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Award, 2010. Carla is a member of the British Guild of Food Writers, the Circle of Wine Writers and of Slow Food. Her photographs of Italian food and its makers are widely published. Carla was a co-organizer of Cook it Raw, an itinerant think tank featuring top international chefs. She divides her time between Italy, London, Bordeaux, New York and the rest of the world. Carla contributes regularly to Decanter, Zester Daily, and numerous other publications internationally. Her articles have been included in many anthologies, including Best Food Writing 2010, and How the British Fell in Love with Food.