Kate Jenkins turns the Air Contemporary gallery in London into a fully imagined Italian trattoria, where every dish—from lasagna to tiramisu—is rendered in yarn, crochet, and embroidery rather than flour and cheese.

The space is dressed with gingham tablecloths, a mock gelato freezer, and shelves crowded with more than a thousand fabric food items. Visitors wander past stitched salami slices, hand‑knit bottles of Chianti, and bowls brimming with individually crocheted pasta pieces, each rendered with a fidelity that makes the impossible feel almost edible.

Jenkins approaches each recipe as a construction project. She knits the sheets of pasta, crochets the ragù, and layers the pieces exactly as she would when cooking a real lasagna. Achieving the right colour, texture and even the tiny serrated edge of a ravioli required endless experimentation with yarn blends and stitch techniques, sometimes swapping a knitting machine for a crochet hook to capture a waffle‑cone’s lattice.

A former knitwear designer for houses such as Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade, Jenkins began stitching food as a playful side project. The 2007 exhibition Comfort Food marked the turning point, and a decade later her love of Italian regional cuisine—fuelled by trips with her partner—has culminated in this deeply personal installation.

The show arrives at a moment when ‘grandma hobbies’ like knitting have surged among Gen Z, turning craft into a communal activity. Past shows have invited audiences to knit their own cakes, and at Knitalian a build‑your‑own‑pizza station encourages participation—though guests quickly learn that the menu is for the eyes only.

By weaving together culinary nostalgia and textile mastery, Jenkins creates a visual feast that blurs the line between craft and cuisine, inviting viewers to linger, admire, and perhaps reconsider what it means to be nourished by art.

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