We spent an afternoon in the lovingly renovated Victorian terrace of Martina Casonato — the designer, photographer and host behind The Venetian Pantry — talking hosting as a love language, cooking as meditation, and why her pantry is always ready for a friend who drops by unannounced.

Martina grew up in a small town in the Venetian countryside, an hour or so from Venice, before moving to London in 2012 to study graphic design. Today she lives in Stoke Newington with her husband Joe — also a designer — in a Victorian home the two of them renovated together, moving in between lockdowns in early 2021. It's a house built around a single, sociable idea: a kitchen with a proper pantry at its heart, its deep walnut-framed doors giving the account, and this episode, its name.

What began as a way to share the renovation with friends and family who couldn't visit in person has grown into a whole world across Instagram, Substack and her podcast, Spilling Tea — food, interiors, travel, and, most recently, her first homeware collection, La Collezione, made with makers across Italy and the UK. But at the centre of it all is still the same instinct: a well-stocked pantry, a table set with care, and the people you love around it. It's an ethos that sits at the very heart of our own Slow Living Stories — that a home is at its best when nothing is rushed and everything is chosen with intention.

 

On hosting as a love language:

"Hosting for me is a love language in its own right. Picking the right records, setting the mood, taking the time to cook something from scratch — a little something to make the table pretty, like rosebuds from the garden arranged in simple vases, lighting a special candle by the entrance, having tea and snacks always at the ready in my pantry, just in case a friend drops by."

 

On why cooking, for her, feels like a kind of meditation:

"Preparing food feels also like a meditation of sorts. It forces me to slow down. It grounds me and relaxes me. As a designer and photographer, my work happens mostly in the digital world, so there is something deeply satisfying about the tactile nature of cooking. In many ways, it's as much an act of service for the people I love as it is an act of self-care."

 

And what she hopes people take away from her table:

"And if everyone leaves feeling a little more nourished than when they arrived, well, I think that's a day well spent."

 

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