Welcome to Juls’ Kitchen
Food, stories and a slower way of life from the Tuscan countryside.
Ciao! We are Giulia Scarpaleggia and Tommaso Galli, the people behind Juls’ Kitchen.
What started in 2009 as Giulia’s food blog has grown, slowly and naturally, into a family project rooted in the Tuscan countryside where we live and work.
Over the years, Juls’ Kitchen has become a collection of recipes and stories, cookbooks, cooking experiences, a newsletter and, now, a small place to stay.
Everything we do begins in the same place: our family home in Tuscany, a love for Italian home cooking, the rhythm of the seasons, and the belief that food is one of the best ways to understand a place and the people who live there.
Start from here
Recipes to cook, stories to read, books to keep, experiences to share and a home in Tuscany to come back to.
Cook — Recipes from our Tuscan kitchen
Juls’ Kitchen began with recipes, and they are still at the heart of everything we do.
Our online archive gathers hundreds of tested Italian and Tuscan recipes, from fresh pasta and traditional family dishes to seasonal vegetables, cakes, preserves and everyday meals.
These are the recipes we cook at home, teach in our classes and return to season after season.
Experience — Cook with us in Tuscany
Come spend a day around our table.
At the Juls’ Kitchen Studio, in the countryside of Colle di Val d’Elsa between Siena and Florence, we host small, hands-on cooking classes inspired by Italian home cooking, local markets and the seasons.
You might shop with us at the market, make fresh pasta, cook vegetables at the height of their season and discover traditional Tuscan recipes. Then we sit down together and eat everything we have cooked.
More than a cooking lesson, it is an invitation to slow down and experience a little of our everyday Tuscany.
Read — Letters from Tuscany
For recipes, stories and everyday life from our corner of Italy, join us at Letters from Tuscany.
Our independent newsletter is where most of our new writing lives today: tested recipes, seasonal cooking inspiration, stories from Tuscany, favourite places, conversations, travel notes and glimpses behind the scenes of our work.
Think of it as a letter from a friend in the Italian countryside — and an invitation to pull up a chair at our table.
Cookbooks — Bring our kitchen home
Our cookbooks are another way of telling the story of Italian home cooking.
From the family recipes of Giulia’s first books to Cucina Povera, From the Markets of Tuscany and the latest Vegetables the Italian Way, each book explores the resourceful, seasonal and deeply satisfying way Italians cook at home.
They are books made in our kitchen and around Tuscany, with Giulia’s recipes and stories and Tommaso’s photography.
Stay — Casa Marcella
Like your home, but in Tuscany.
Starting in 2027, you can do more than cook with us. You can also stay next door.
Casa Marcella is a small one-bedroom holiday home in Lano, in the countryside of Colle di Val d’Elsa. It was once the home of Giulia’s grandmother Marcella and is part of the same country house where generations of her family have lived — and where we still live today.
We are bringing it back to life as a simple, welcoming home for travellers who want to explore Tuscany without rushing: slow mornings, good food, medieval villages, countryside walks and quiet evenings at home.
And if you are joining one of our cooking classes, the Juls’ Kitchen Studio is only a few steps away.
Meet Juls’ Kitchen
Giulia is a Tuscan food writer, cookbook author and cooking teacher, born and raised here. She learnt to cook with her grandmother and her mother and has spent more than fifteen years sharing the food and stories of her region.
Tommaso is a photographer and the person behind much of the visual and technical side of Juls’ Kitchen. Together, we create the recipes, books, photographs, newsletters, cooking experiences and projects you find here.
We live in the countryside with our daughter Livia and our rescue dog, Teo, in the same family home where much of the Juls’ Kitchen story began.
Juls’ Kitchen is our way of sharing this place with you — through the food we cook, the stories we tell and the people we welcome around our table.
Come find your Tuscany
Maybe you arrived here looking for a recipe.
Maybe you are planning a cooking class, choosing your next cookbook or dreaming about a few days in the Tuscan countryside.
Or perhaps you simply enjoy hearing from this little corner of Italy from time to time.
However you found us, welcome to Juls’ Kitchen.
Juls’ Kitchen
Recipes · Stories · Cookbooks · Cooking Experiences · Tuscany