'Kate's Knitalian': a knitted Italian restaurant where nothing can be eaten opens in London

A restaurant where the dishes are inedible

Layers of lasagne with Bolognese, cannoli with pistachio filling and tiramisu — all of this can be seen at the new 'restaurant' 'Kate's Knitalian', but not a single dish can be eaten: every item on the menu is knitted, crocheted, embroidered or sewn. The project's author is British artist Kate Jenkins, and the venue is the Air Contemporary gallery in London's Soho, styled as a trattoria: checkered tablecloths, wall decorations and a giant gelato display case. Euronews Culture reported on the exhibition's opening.

A year of work and a thousand knitted dishes

The project took about a year and includes more than a thousand textile copies of food and drinks: slices of salami, cheeses, bottles of Chianti and hundreds of individual pieces of pasta. According to Jenkins, the idea grew out of her frequent trips to Italy with her Italian partner and her interest in regional differences in cuisine — from Venetian cicchetti to red onions from Crotone. She approached knitting the lasagne like real cooking: first she knitted the pasta sheets, then crocheted the 'ragu', and then assembled everything in layers. Experiments with yarns and techniques helped achieve convincing colours and textures — ravioli require a special scalloped edge, while the waffle ice cream cone was partly made on a knitting machine. The most difficult dish, according to the publication, turned out to be the knitted tiramisu.

From knitwear designer to 'knitted food'

Jenkins learned to knit as a child from her grandmother, worked as a knitwear designer with Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade in the late 1990s, and later founded her own brand, Cardigan. She began knitting food while coming up with promotion for an accessories line, and her first exhibition on this theme, 'Comfort Food', took place in 2007 and, according to the artist, completely changed her career. She has previously created knitted copies of fishmongers, bakeries, supermarkets and bagel bars, and at the 2022 'Cafe Kate' exhibition in the Netherlands, visitors were invited to knit their own pastries.

Interactivity and context

The new exhibition features a 'build your own pizza' zone, which, as the author emphasises, requires neither knitting skills nor culinary abilities. Euronews also notes that the opening coincided with the growing popularity of 'grandma hobbies': according to a survey by Mintel Group Ltd., 86% of Generation Z consider themselves engaged in crafts or making things. Jenkins herself links the interest to the accessibility of learning online and the low barrier to entry — knitting requires no expensive tools. The 'Kate's Knitalian' exhibition will run until 5 December 2026.