There are countless ways to experience Italy, but some of the most memorable moments happen far beyond the famous landmarks and bustling restaurants. These moments happen around a family table, learning to make pasta from someone who learned the recipe from her grandmother, sharing stories over a meal or discovering the traditions that make one Italian town different from the next.
That is the idea behind Cesarine, an immersive culinary experience that invites travelers into private Italian homes to cook, dine, and connect with local hosts. Founded in Bologna in 2004, Cesarine has grown into a community of more than 1,500 hosts offering experiences in more than 700 destinations throughout Italy.
Maria Rita Tattini of Cesarine gives an inside look at what makes these intimate culinary experiences so special.
Q: What inspired Cesarine, and what did you feel was missing from the traditional tourist experience in Italy that you wanted to create?
A: Cesarine was born from a very simple idea: some of the most authentic and precious parts of Italian food culture are not found in restaurants or cookbooks, but in people’s homes. We wanted to create an opportunity for travelers to experience Italy through the eyes of local people, around a family table and through recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. As tourism has become increasingly focused on authentic and meaningful experiences, we felt there was a need to go beyond simply visiting Italy and instead create opportunities to truly connect with the people, traditions, and communities that make each place unique.
Q: What makes being welcomed into someone’s home so different from taking a traditional cooking class or dining at a restaurant?
A: The biggest difference is the human connection. When you enter a Cesarina’s home, you are not simply attending a cooking lesson or sitting down for a meal, but rather you are being welcomed as a guest. You cook together, share stories, learn about family traditions and often talk about everyday life in Italy. Every experience is personal because every home and every Cesarina is different. A restaurant can give you a wonderful taste of Italian cuisine, but a meal in a private home can give you a glimpse into the culture and the people behind that cuisine.
Q: Every Cesarine experience is rooted in the host’s recipes, traditions and local heritage. Can you tell us about some of the hosts and experiences that really capture what Cesarine is all about?
A: What makes the Cesarine community so special is its incredible diversity. They include grandmothers who have been preparing the same family pasta recipe for decades, passionate home cooks who preserve local culinary traditions, and hosts who introduce guests to ingredients and customs specific to their region. One of the most beautiful aspects is that the experience changes from one part of Italy to another. A guest might learn how to make fresh pasta in Bologna, explore regional recipes in Tuscany, discover seafood traditions in Sardinia or learn about local ingredients through a market visit followed by cooking and lunch at a host’s home. These are not standardized experiences—they reflect the person, family, and territory behind them.
Q: Cesarine emphasizes sustainability and supporting local economies. How does that philosophy shape the experiences you offer, and what impact can a traveler have simply by choosing to experience Italy this way?
A: Cesarine has been part of the Slow Food Community since 2019, and the values of protecting local food traditions, biodiversity, and small-scale producers are very much aligned with our mission. Our hosts naturally tend to use seasonal and local ingredients and to preserve traditional recipes that might otherwise disappear. There is also an important economic dimension. By choosing a local, home-based experience, travelers are directly supporting people and communities rather than simply consuming a destination. They are helping keep culinary knowledge alive and contributing to the vitality of smaller towns and villages. In this sense, even one meal can have a positive impact—it creates a direct connection between the traveler and the local community.
Q: For someone planning a trip to Italy who wants to go beyond the typical tourist experience, what would you say they’ll take away from a Cesarine experience that they simply couldn’t get from a guidebook or traditional tour?
A: They will take away a personal story. A guidebook can tell you what a region is famous for, but a Cesarina can tell you what her grandmother used to cook, why a particular recipe is prepared for a specific celebration, where her family buys its ingredients or what a dish means to her personally. These are the details that transform a trip into a memory. We often say that food is a gateway to understanding Italy. Around the table, travelers don't just learn how to make pasta or prepare a traditional dish; they discover the history, personality and everyday life of a place. And they leave having met someone they might never otherwise have had the opportunity to meet.
For more information, visit cesarine.com.
Cesarina Monica, Como
“Welcoming travelers into my home means opening a little window onto my everyday life and sharing something that is deeply personal to me. I love seeing the curiosity in my guests when they arrive and watching them become more relaxed as we start cooking together. Food immediately creates a connection, even when we don’t speak the same language perfectly.
"One of the traditions I particularly love sharing is making fresh pasta by hand, something I learned from my family. For me, it is not simply about the recipe or getting the perfect shape of the pasta. It is about the gestures, the stories and the memories that come with it. When I teach guests how to make it, I feel that I am passing a small piece of my family history on to someone from another part of the world.
“I hope visitors leave understanding that Italy is made up of so many different local identities and traditions. There isn’t just one Italian cuisine. Every family, town and region has its own stories, ingredients and way of sitting around the table. If my guests leave feeling that they have experienced a little piece of our everyday life rather than simply visited Italy, then I feel I have achieved something special.”
Cesarina Rosa, Palermo
“For me, welcoming travelers into my home is a way of sharing the Italy I know and love—the Italy that you discover around a family table, not just by visiting beautiful places. I love meeting people from different countries and realizing that, despite our different backgrounds, we often have so much in common when we sit down together and share a meal.
“One of the things I most enjoy preparing with my guests is a traditional recipe from my family, made with simple local ingredients. It reminds me of the women in my family who prepared these dishes without ever measuring anything, because they simply knew by heart how much of everything was needed! I love telling guests those stories while we cook, because the recipe becomes much more than food—it becomes a memory.
“I hope visitors understand that Southern Italy is not only about beautiful landscapes and wonderful food, but also about generosity, hospitality and strong communities. I want them to experience the warmth of being welcomed into an Italian home and to leave feeling that, for a few hours, they were not tourists but guests in someone’s family. And I hope they take home not only a recipe, but also a story they will remember.”
Some of the most authentic and precious parts of Italian food culture are not found in restaurants or cookbooks, but in people’s homes.
A restaurant can give you a wonderful taste of Italian cuisine, but a meal in a private home can give you a glimpse into the culture and the people behind that cuisine.