Dubai, UAE: Food that makes you go ‘Mamma Mia!’ – that’s what Italian-Canadian Chef Daniella Sfara served up in Dubai last week, as she returned to Ciao Bella, a cosy little Italian restaurant in Media One Hotel.
Guests were treated to an authentic Italian Supper Club, hosted by the chef.
Trust us when we say – her light and creamy gnocchi is to die for.
The beloved Italian-Canadian chef also headed to Studio One Hotel to host another round of exclusive dining events, offering a unique taste of Italy’s lesser-seen culinary traditions.
Hotels of UAE caught up with her to know more about her journey to mastering the art of ‘nonna-approved’ Italian recipes.
A culinary homecoming in Dubai
Our discussion began with her impressions of Dubai and the experience of returning to Media One Hotel as a guest chef.
“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed, “How can anybody feel anything less than elated and excited and grateful for being here? It’s such a great space. It’s so beautiful. And the invitation is always warm. The welcome is always extraordinary. I feel like I’m home with my family, actually.”
Her supper club menus offered guests a “beautiful trip to Italy,” showcasing curated regional dishes learned in nonna’s and mamma’s kitchens, from meats to seafood.
“Some of those dishes are not found in restaurants, and some of them are,” she said. Her culinary touch will also remain on Ciao Bella’s new menu.
A Passion Born, not pursued
Daniela’s journey into food wasn’t a calculated career choice.
“This is funny because I never wanted to pursue food as a profession, ever at all. It actually happened to me,” she revealed.
As the youngest of five in an Italian family, she learned domestic skills from a very young age. “My mother has masterfully taught me to cook, to clean, to take care of a home, to take care of everything. Watching her, learning even from when I needed a phone book to sit on a chair when I was two, is when I learned.”
Growing up split between Canada and Italy instilled a deep understanding of food’s origins. “It wasn’t just food arrived to the table, but now we know its history. We know its traces of how it got there, how it’s grown, how it’s cultivated, harvested, and cared for by the people. There’s a long lineage,” she explained. “My curiosity was really embedded in me at a very young age.”
Bicoastal roots and the poetry of the kitchen
Born in Canada, Daniela’s early life was deeply immersed in Italian culture. “Having an Italian mom that came from Italy and spoke an Italian dialect, I learned the dialect and then Italian, before I learned English,” she noted.
Her family regularly travelled to Italy to visit her grandmother, splitting their time between the two countries. “If anyone’s ever had the pleasure of living bicoastal, it’s the most educational experience you could ever have in life.”
This upbringing shaped her perspective on food, making every dish memorable. “That’s every dish,” she mused. “Because for me, when I would wake up, for example, Sunday morning—for us in the family, Sunday lunch is pivotal. It’s the one meal that we wait for all week long. I would wake up Sundays, and I would smell the sugo on the stove, and I’d walk into the kitchen, and I’d see Mamma making.”
For Daniela, it was more than just cooking. “Because I had an appreciation for what she did, it wasn’t just making pasta, and it wasn’t just making a dish. For me, it was watching the rhythm and the poetry in her movements, in how she made the pasta, in how she stirred the sugo, in how she made the polpette (meatballs). It’s always been more than a dish. And, it’s not just one dish that I remember because they all have a memorable significance to me.”
This deep connection to cooking, passed down through generations, is the “essence of Italian cooking” she learned.” It’s to take your time, do it with love, do it with reverence, and do it with purpose of caring for somebody,” she emphasised.
“Italians show love through food. If you’re in my home, it’s because I care for you enough that I want to welcome you into my space… And so if I feed you, sit down and eat. Because I want to show you how much I care for you.”
She highlights the simplicity and quality of ingredients, recalling her nonna and mamma’s delicate approach to harvesting from the garden. “Everything had a poetry to it. And it wasn’t just, ‘Let’s take a tomato and let’s do this.’ There was such beauty in the movement of everything that they did… the artistic side of cooking. And that transcends far beyond the kitchen for me.”
