Twenty minutes outside of Florence, Italy, in a beautiful Tuscan villa, awaits a culinary adventure recognized by Airbnb as “The Most Unforgettable Experience”, combining Italian food, culture and music into a very special evening.
The even better news is that this experience also comes to Santa Barbara every year.
Opera In The Kitchen is the creation of Lucrezia “Lulu” Cannito, and Team Let’s Go Eat was privileged recently to share this experience with her in our Team HQ kitchen.
“We want to help guests awaken all of your senses,” Cannito shared with us. “Opera In The Kitchen is an experience of sharing the passion for good food and the Italian culture and tradition.”
At her events, everyone helps makes dinner.
“Everyone can prepare the meal together while they’re having fun, drinking a glass of wine,” Cannito said. “The guests do everything from scratch. Everybody is making pasta.”
And then, after the dinner is made and served, comes the added treat that helps make this so special: a professional opera singer performing some of the greatest Italian arias.
“We have the opera singers just there for you,” Cannito said. “A much more emotional experience, and you can get to know the singers, talk to them afterward.”
Emotional is right. As we looked around the table at our guests during the performance by Los Angeles-based professional opera soprano Natalie Salins, we saw mouths open wide and tears in eyes.
It was indeed magical.
Where did this exceptional idea come from?
“I play the saxophone (her mother insisted at a young age), love opera, and learned to cook with my momma and my nonna when I was a child,” Cannito recalled.
“I have passion for the good food, the music, the people.”
Cannito’s family has vineyards in Tuscany, where they produce the grapes for their own wine, and a farm to the south in Puglia, where she was born, with more than 1,600 olive trees to make extra virgin olive oil.
“In my hometown village of Montemesola we have more olive trees than people,” she added, laughing.
Cannito has a masters degree in marketing and economics, and originally worked in an office setting.
“I didn’t like it, so I thought about what I really love to do in my life,” she said. “I love to organize events, I love to be with people, and my family produces wine and olive oil since three generations.”
So in 2018 she combined all her talents and passions and launched Opera In The Kitchen. (She also is a certified sommelier, a trained chef and an avid swing dancer. Don’t hate.)
“It has always been cooking class, dinner and live opera,” she explained. “We do now two per day, in the morning through lunch, no opera. And in the evening it’s cooking class, dinner, and a live performance of opera.”
While Cannito credits her father for her knowledge of wine and olive oil, it’s her mother’s side that instilled in her the passion for food.
“90% of the recipes are from my grandmother and my mom,” she told us.
Included in those recipes are incredible ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta, sauteed in butter and sage, and the chicken cacciatore we had for the second course.
“Smell, cook, touch, taste, listen and have fun with friends. It’s the perfect experience to learn about Italian culture, tradition and food.”
Lulu Cannito
“Every region makes it differently, but my grandmother always made it with olives, tomatoes and red wine,” Cannito recalled.
To round out our meal we had bruschetta for appetizers while we made dinner, and then a fantastic chocolate and orange Tiramisu for dessert.
While Opera In The Kitchen is technically running 12 months of the year in Italy, the winter slows down considerably in rural Tuscany.
So, at the suggestion of a friend, she began bringing Opera In The Kitchen to the United States during the winter months — including now Santa Barbara — and the response has been enthusiastic.
And why not? As Cannito puts it, “Smell, cook, touch, taste, listen and have fun with friends. It’s the perfect experience to learn about Italian culture, tradition and food.”
Combined with music of great passion and emotion, it makes for a very special evening.
So if you’re visiting Italy this year, why not include a “Most Unforgettable Experience” in the Tuscan countryside.
And if a trip to Tuscany isn’t in the cards this year, well …
If you’re a friend to Lulu, she might consider doing an evening at your house next time she comes through.
Consider yourself introduced.
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Contact Opera In The Kitchen at operaninthekitchen@gmail.com or +39.327.5785199
Strada Morrocco 36, 50028
Barberino Tavarnelle (Florence)