This story was first published in the Newcastle Herald Weekender in print and online in the Newcastle Herald Weekender on May 10, 2025.
A Tavola is the Newcastle-based business of Gabriella Kelly, a dining experience that brings together bespoke dinner parties and events that are big on style, taste, and authentic Italian flavours.
Food and family were the key inspirations behind A Tavola. “My parents, as well as both of my grandmothers, were incredible cooks. It was my Nonna [grandmother] who really inspired me to cook food that honoured my Italian heritage and family. I knew that this was something I always wanted to share with people.”
“A Tavola translates to ‘at the table’ in Italian and is a saying Italian families are familiar with when a meal is ready,” explains Gabriella. “I have fond memories of my Nonna [Giuseppina Fioriti] calling ‘A Tavola!’ at our family lunches when I was young, signifying our food was ready and for everyone to come and sit at the table. I felt this was a meaningful name for my business, and thus, ‘A Tavola’ was born!”
Gabriella, a former primary school teacher, wanted to work in a new industry and start a business that combined her love of cooking and hosting. After testing many dinner parties on her family and friends and running a pop-up supper club with her cousin in the UK (where she lived for 10 years), Gabriella launched A Tavola in March 2024.
A Tavola offers stylised, bespoke dinner parties—spanning eight to 20 guests for a sit-down dinner through to larger cocktail-style parties—for special occasions, like birthdays, baby showers, hen parties, and, more recently, catering and styling for small weddings. The styling component of Gabriella’s service allows clients to choose from five unique, beautifully styled tablescapes or to create something more custom through a mood board.
Menus are seasonal and feature a blend of Gabriella’s own recipes, developed using modern techniques, alongside her Nonna’s recipes, which draw from the simple, wholesome, and tasty ‘la cucina povera’ (or ‘peasant food’) of her Nonna’s hometown, a tiny village called Bomba in Italy’s Abruzzo region.
“It’s food that I love to eat that comes from the heart. It’s the food I have grown up eating with loved ones and that I learned to cook from a young age. I feel very connected to my heritage through my cooking, and seeing people enjoy eating it really is the best feeling in the world!”
Gabriella says her Nonna has a way of turning the simplest of ingredients into something magical. “There are no real measurements in her cooking, only ‘a handful of this’ and ‘two pinches of that’ – so really the only way to learn her recipes was to watch and cook with her. She has had a huge influence on the way I look at ingredients and how to use them in the most flavourful way possible.”
“My beautiful Nonno [grandfather], who sadly passed away two years ago, grew the most amazing veggie garden, and so having access to homegrown produce was also something that has influenced the way I choose my ingredients.”
Over a year into A Tavola, Gabriella says, “I feel incredibly lucky that I’m able to share the experiences passed down from my family with the people of Newcastle. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Mangiamo!”
Lisa Cugnetto 