Flour, Egg & Intention: The Art of Making Fresh Pasta

There is a moment, early in the pasta-making process, when the dough stops being a shaggy, uncertain mass and becomes something smooth, elastic, and alive beneath your hands. If you've experienced it, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven't — well, that's partly why this retreat exists.

Making fresh pasta is not complicated. But it does ask something of you. It asks for your presence. It asks you to slow down, to feel what's in your hands, to resist the urge to rush. In a world that relentlessly rewards speed and efficiency, there is something quietly radical about kneading dough.

​This September, in the hills of Tuscany, we're offering our retreat guests the chance to experience exactly that — guided by one of Italy's most thoughtful and accomplished chefs.

On the Craft: Why Fresh Pasta is Worth Learning

Dried pasta is a marvel. It stores for months, cooks in minutes, and is genuinely delicious. But fresh pasta — made by hand from flour and egg — is something else entirely. Fresh pasta has a tenderness that dried pasta can't replicate. The texture is silkier, more delicate, more yielding. It absorbs sauces differently. It holds fillings in a way that feels almost architectural. And when you make it yourself, there's a satisfaction attached to every bite that no restaurant can give you

The craft has roots stretching back centuries, particularly in the regions of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, where the egg-rich dough known as pasta all'uovo became the backbone of a culinary tradition. Grandmothers passed it to mothers, mothers to daughters, and on it went — a thread of knowledge woven through generations. Today, that thread is thinner. Most of us buy pasta from a packet. Most of us have never felt the resistance of fresh dough under a rolling pin, or watched a thin sheet of pasta catch the light. Learning to make it — really learning, with patience and guidance — is a way of reconnecting with something older and quieter than our current pace of life allows.

The Mindfulness of Making: Why Your Hands Know Things Your Mind Doesn't

There's a reason that so many people describe cooking from scratch as meditative. It's not metaphorical. When you make pasta by hand, you are entirely in your body. You're feeling the texture of the dough, watching its colour change, listening for the soft sound it makes when it's ready to rest. You are not scrolling. You are not planning. You are not anywhere but here.

Psychologists sometimes call this a state of flow — the absorption in a task that demands just enough of you to hold your attention completely, but not so much that it overwhelms. Skilled, repetitive handwork — kneading, rolling, folding, shaping — is one of the most reliable routes into this state. In this sense, making pasta is not just a cooking skill. It is a practice. A way of being present. A small, satisfying form of meditation that ends with dinner.

A Simple Guide: How to Make Fresh Egg Pasta at Home

Before you join us in Tuscany, here's a starting point — the foundations of a classic pasta all'uovo that you can practice in your own kitchen.

What You'll Need (serves 4):

• 400g tipo 00 flour (or plain flour if unavailable)
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• A pinch of fine salt
• A drizzle of olive oil (optional)

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The Method:

1. Build your well. Mound the flour on a clean surface and create a well in the centre — wide enough to hold your eggs without overflowing. Add a pinch of salt.

2. Add the eggs. Crack the eggs into the well. Using a fork, begin beating the eggs gently, gradually incorporating flour from the inner walls of the well. Work slowly — you're not in a hurry.

3. Bring it together. Once the mixture becomes too thick to use a fork, use your hands. Push, fold, and press the dough, drawing in more flour as you go, until you have a rough ball.

4. Knead with intention. Now comes the meditative part. Knead the dough firmly for 8–10 minutes — pushing away from you with the heel of your hand, folding, turning, and repeating. You're developing the gluten, and you'll feel the dough transform: from rough to smooth, from tight to silky. When you press a finger in and it springs back slowly, you're there.

5. Rest. Wrap the dough tightly in cling film and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. This is non-negotiable — the rest relaxes the gluten and makes rolling infinitely easier.

6. Roll. Divide the dough into portions and roll each one thin — either with a rolling pin or pasta machine, starting at the widest setting and working down. Dust generously with flour to prevent sticking.

7. Shape. From here, the world opens up. Cut into ribbons for tagliatelle or pappardelle. Use a cutter for pappardelle. Fold and fill for ravioli. Each shape has its own logic, its own satisfaction.
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A note: Don't expect perfection on your first attempt. That's not the point. The point is to begin — and to notice what your hands are learning as you go.
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Chef Igor Rosi: The Man Who Will Teach You

For our September retreat, we are privileged to welcome Chef Igor Rosi as our workshop guide — and the more we learned about him, the more certain we became that he was the right person for this experience.
Igor was born in the province of Pistoia in 1983 and grew up learning his first kitchen instincts from his grandparents, who ran a restaurant. At eighteen, after graduating from the Hotel Management School in Montecatini, he left for France — drawn by a desire for freedom, for experience, for understanding how other culinary traditions approached creativity and rigour.

What followed was twenty years of extraordinary formation: kitchens in Venice, Milan, London, New York, and eight years in Brussels at the Hotel Amigo — a Rocco Forte property with one of the most celebrated Italian restaurants in Europe. He returned to Italy as Head Chef of Ristorante Devoti at La Monastica, where his food draws directly from the property's kitchen garden, blending seasonal ingredients into dishes that feel both deeply rooted and quietly surprising. What we love most about Igor is his guiding philosophy. He calls simplicity his compass. Not plainness — but the kind of simplicity that emerges from deep understanding. The kind that knows when to step back and let an ingredient be itself. That's the spirit he'll bring to our workshop. And it's the spirit we hope you'll carry home with you.

​Why We Chose This Workshop for Our Retreat

When we were designing this retreat, we kept coming back to the same question: What experiences will people still be talking about in five years? Not the view from the terrace, beautiful as it is. Not the wine, though it will be excellent. The experiences that stay with you are the ones where you made something. Where you learned something. Where your hands were involved and your mind was quiet.

A pasta-making workshop with a world-class Tuscan chef, beginning with a forage through an organic kitchen garden and ending with a handmade meal and a glass of local wine — that, we thought, is exactly the kind of thing people carry with them. It is also, quietly, a lesson in how to be. In how to slow down, pay attention, and find genuine pleasure in the process rather than just the outcome.
That feels like the right note for a retreat in Tuscany in September.

Join Us

Our September retreat is intimate by design — small group, deep experiences, and time to actually breathe.
If pasta making with Chef Igor, a stay at La Monastica, and a week of mindful slow living in Tuscany sounds like exactly what you need, we'd love to have you. 

Get in touch with us on [email protected] for more.