“I’m a storyteller at heart,” explains entrepreneur and Italian culture guru Daniela Sfara.
“I thoroughly love using food, wine, culture and heritage to connect people to their Italian roots. And for non-Italians, to immerse them in the beauty of what italianismo truly is,” she continues.
And that she does. Daniela Sfara’s journey into the culinary arts is both unique and completely predicable, that is, if you know her story.
Sfara was working in jewelry making when she moved from Toronto, Ontario, to Cambridge, Ontario, in 2020. She had every intention of continuing her career trajectory, but then COVID happened. All of sudden demand for her skills came to a pause. She was home with nothing to do, and so she started cooking more.
“A construction crew appeared just outside my apartment during the lockdown. And before long I was feeding construction workers!” she muses.
Offering food to others made her happy. Folks started asking her for private cooking lessons. This made her even happier.
Sfara was born in Toronto to a Calabrese immigrant mom. Italian – and the Calabrese dialect – were her first languages. She grew up bi-coastal, spending half her time in Toronto and half her time in Italy. This gave Sfara a very unique perspective; she became fully immersed and knowledgeable of both the modern-day Italian and Italian-Canadian culture. And when it comes to cooking, she continues to be inspired by her mom.
“I look at my mom, who is now 93 years old, and there is no way I can do anything close to what she’s done. I don’t think we celebrate that generation enough. We just don’t understand what our grandparents did and experienced,” Sfara comments.
“What I’m doing is connecting that bridge. It we don’t understand where they came from and what they did, then how can we celebrate them?”
Sfara accomplishes her goal with an impressive diversity of projects that focus on the history, cuisine, and culture of lesser-known regions of Italy.
Sfara organizes “Italian Supper Clubs” in Canada and in other countries. She offers in-person and virtual “intuitive” cooking classes. She offers home dining experiences where, as she explains, “I come, I cook, I serve, I pour, I clean.”
She works as a consultant for restaurants owners and chefs who want to create an authentic Italian menu with regional specialties. She shares and creates content on her Instagram, TikTok and Facebook platforms. She hosts the “Italy at Home” podcast. An official “Cultural Ambassador” for the promotion of the authentic side of Italy, Sfara collaborates with Italian culture and tourism associations to share the lesser-known Italy to individuals and companies. She partners with travel boutiques to curate unique itineraries for “local experiences” in Italy. She offers talks at events, workshops, and educational institutions. And she’s working on a soon to be released cookbook featuring authentic Italian regional cuisine and culture.
Just wow.
“My private cooking classes are intuitive. No mixers. No measuring cups. It’s the way your Nonna’s in the small Italian village made their pasta. They understood their environment, the weather, the humidity. I don’t just teach them how to cook. I teach people to understand what they’re doing. I teach them to connect to the ingredients, to the culture behind that recipe.”
“Some of my classes end up turning into Italian Sunday lunches,” she muses.
“Clients arrive at noon and leave at 6:00PM. The non-Italians tell me often that they thought they knew what Italian food was, that is, until they experienced my Sunday extravaganza,” she continues.
Sfara is critical of what she calls an Americanised version of Italy.
“The influences on social media, the mass consumption of Italy by Americans, we think we’re travelling Italy, eating Italian, experiencing Italian culture. But we’re deluding ourselves. The 30-, 40-, the 50-year-olds know the Italy their families are from, but they don’t understand the culture behind that Italy. Through the work I do, I take it one hundred steps deeper.”
Earlier this year, Sfara was honored by the Toronto chapter of the Canadian Italian Business Professionals Association with a “Women in Leadership” award. She was recently made President in Canada for ELITE Italian hospitality.
“There’s so much more to the Italian and Italian-Canadian culture that people don’t get. And if we don’t know our own history, then how can we appreciate it? I fill in the blanks.”
To follow Daniela Sfara’s work, please visit danielasfara.com.
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