Alla Carta asks designer Martino Gamper for a favorite recipe

For our first post to Pamono, we thought that Martino Gamper would be a perfect subject. We met him for lunch some months ago to interview him for our second issue of Alla Carta, and he cooked a great meal for us.

Besides being a well-known and esteemed designer, he is in fact a food lover and an excellent cook. If you happen to be in London and pass by his studio during dinnertime, you’ll probably hear lots of happy voices chatting and laughing, and most of all you will smell the delicious aroma of food. If Martino is cooking for at least fifteen people, he might invite you in. You can tell he is Italian.

We asked Martino to tell us one of his favorite recipes, and then we sat down with him for a Q&A.

Martino's Pumpkin Ravioli

Make pasta dough and roll out to 1mm thickness.

Use an approx. 80mm diameter drinking glass turned upside down to cut circles out of the rolled dough. Fill circle with a teaspoon of the pumpkin mixture and fold to a half moon shape, pinching the edges very firmly.

Boil in salted water until they float.

Serve with sage leaves cooked in a little melted butter.

Pumpkin & ginger filling:

Roast pumpkin, when cooked mash with grated root ginger, pepper, salt and a little butter.

Buon appetito!

AC: Is there something in particular that keeps design and food related?

MG: Similarly with food, in design you have a lot of produce and you try to create something out of that produce. It's about responding to what you find, what's out there. In terms of technique, there are only about six or seven different ways of cooking things: steaming, frying, roasting, boiling and so on. That's very similar to design; you only have a few basic production techniques that you can combine. Then you try to manipulate things, try to find different ways of mixing them. I also like the spontaneity; there’s no going back in cooking. In design you can always go back and fix your mistakes somehow, but not in cooking.

AC: What do you like about food?

MG: I love the social aspect of food, the fact that you get to know someone while eating. You can make real friends.

AC: Where do you buy your food in London?

MG: I live in Hackney, which is becoming a really amazing place for food. We have three fishmongers in the area, beef from the English countryside, handmade sour bread. We also buy our fruit and vegetables online. There are also two farmer's markets on Saturdays and Sundays for fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and chicken. I get my pasta and polenta from Italy, olive oil from friends in Puglia. We really believe in using good quality, wholesome ingredients. We really try to avoid going to Tesco.

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Interview by Rujana Rebernjak

Photography by Tanya Houghton

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    Alla Carta Magazine

    Alla Carta approaches food as an incentive to take a bite of diverse cultural phenomena. We are intrigued by the meal's convivial capacity, and have found food to be an essential element for sharing thoughts, opinions and creative ideas.