Bahraini chef Tala Bashmi is heading to Italy for a one-night-only collaboration with pizzaiolo Franco Pepe, cooking alongside him at Authentica, his private dining room at Pepe in Grani in Caiazzo.
The event takes place on Friday | 18 September and brings together two chefs from very different food traditions: Pepe, star of the Netflix docuseries Chef’s Table: Pizza (2022) and widely regarded as one of the world’s leading pizza makers, and Bashmi, the Bahraini chef credited with reshaping how modern Khaleeji cuisine is understood outside the Gulf.
What Is Authentica?
Authentica is the small private dining room on the top floor of Pepe in Grani, Pepe’s restaurant in Caiazzo, near Caserta. It seats a maximum of eight guests around a wood-fired oven, where Pepe cooks in full view of the table.
Since opening in 2017, the room has hosted a string of well-known names in international cooking, including Nancy Silverton and several Michelin-starred chefs. Pepe has described it as a space built around encounters and new stories, one where ingredients, cultures and traditions from elsewhere are invited into dialogue with his own dough and land.
For this instalment, that invitation goes to Bashmi, the first Arab woman to cook alongside Pepe at Authentica.
Who Is Tala Bashmi?
Bashmi is one of the most recognised names in Gulf cooking. Born and raised in Bahrain, she trained at the Culinary Arts Academy in Switzerland before working in European kitchens and returning home.
Her honours include the inaugural MENA Best Female Chef Award in 2022, the Rising Star Award in 2023, Three Knives at The Best Chef Awards in 2024, and the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs’ Choice Award in 2025. In 2024, she was appointed Gastronomy Ambassador for the UN World Tourism Organisation.
She spent a decade as chef-patronne of Fusions by Tala at the Gulf Hotel Bahrain, stepping away from the restaurant in late 2024. Under her leadership, it was named Best Restaurant in Bahrain in 2023 and held a place on the Middle East and North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants list for three consecutive years.
Two Chefs, One Evening, No Plan
Neither chef has revealed what the menu will look like. Pepe has described the format as open-ended, saying, “We don’t know exactly what will come out of this encounter yet. That’s exactly the beauty of Authentica.”
What’s confirmed is the scale, or lack of it. Eight seats, one oven, and one evening for two chefs to put Bahraini and Italian food traditions in the same room.
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