From pasta as canvas to azulejos as inspiration: Tiziana Lepore’s project that bridges Italy and Portugal through art and cuisine.
From a passion for gastronomy to the discovery of a new form of artistic expression, Tiziana Lepore created Massazuleja, a project that fuses artisanal pasta with the art of hand-painted tiles.
An ideal bridge between Italy and Portugal, turning each dish into something to admire and savour.
How did the idea of Massazuleja come about, and what is the creative process behind it?
I’m originally from Benevento and have always loved art, particularly hand-painted tiles. When I moved to Lisbon with my daughter, I found this tradition alive and beautifully preserved. One day, in my kitchen filled with azulejos, I was making pasta and imagined transferring those patterns directly onto the dough.
That’s how my experimentation with natural powders began, until I found the right technique.
Massazuleja is a vegan pasta, free from animal ingredients, made with selected flours and superfoods like spirulina, turmeric, cocoa, and matcha tea. The techniques are complex, requiring skilled hands and attention to detail—like haute couture tailoring. Today, we’re working on making it more scalable, thanks to the strong enthusiasm shown by the gastronomy sector, both in Italy and abroad.
The project blends art and cuisine. Do you feel more like a craftswoman or an artist? And what kind of restaurants do you collaborate with?
I’d say both. When I create a dish like the open raviolo inspired by Gualtiero Marchesi, the line between art and flavour fades. The pasta has to captivate visually, but it must also taste good. And for us Italians, that means simplicity, balance, and high-quality ingredients.
I collaborate with carefully selected restaurants, often gourmet or experimental, that share a cultural and aesthetic vision of food. Massazuleja is a niche artisanal product, not suitable for mass production, but I hope one day it can reach a wider audience.
Workshops are a core part of your project. How do they unfold, and what role do young people play?
I welcome participants from all over the world: chefs, designers, architects. I introduce them to the project, explain the techniques, and then we knead the dough together.
While it rests, I serve an Italian aperitivo—a convivial moment where we keep talking about art, culture, and food. Each person creates their own edible azulejo, and I also teach two pasta formats to cook. At the end, I hand out a small certificate.
Working with young people is especially rewarding. I’ve held workshops just for teenagers. When they step away from screens and get their hands on something real, they rediscover the joy of doing. It’s as if they’re saying: “give us something meaningful.” Massazuleja can become a tool for self-expression and a way for them to feel part of a living, tangible culture.
How do you imagine the future of Massazuleja?
I’d love for the project to get even closer to the world of art, culture, and education— organising culinary exhibitions, collaborating with museums and artists, involving young people in creative initiatives. We need messages that speak of identity, memory, and coexistence. Beauty matters, but it’s not enough: it needs meaning.
In one of your campaigns, the pasta is placed inside a treasure box. What does that image represent for you?
It’s a very powerful symbol. The box contains a precious gift, handmade with love—a message of culture, craftsmanship, and identity. The pasta becomes a canvas, an ambassador of Italian beauty. Eating it is the final act: nourishing yourself with beauty, too.
With Massazuleja, Tiziana Lepore has built a language that speaks to both the heart and the mind—merging art and food into an experience that is at once sensorial, cultural, and deeply personal.
