about

Silvestro Silvestori is a nationally-trained sommelier (l’AIS, The Italian national system, 2010), cook, teacher, photographer and the owner and director of The Awaiting Table Cookery School in Lecce, Italy. The Awaiting Table offers day, weekend and week-long courses based on small classes in historical centre of Lecce, Italy, as well as larger, themed weeks that go deeper into specialised topics such as world-class extra virgin olive oil- and coming in October 2011, the virtually unknown but incredible wines of the entire South of Italy.

Follow his daily cooking on Twitter. Befriend and see more pictures on Facebook. Read about his first love, the traditional cooking of the Salento,  Italy’s stilleto heel.

Read the flattering reviews of the school in Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, The Los Angeles Times, The London Times, Shape, Wine & Spirits, Corriere della Sera, Il Mattino and many others.

Learn more about the classes by visiting here.

What is Terronia and The New Wine School of Southern Italy?

Debuting in October of 2011, Terronia: The New Wine School of Southern Italy is a week-long programme aimed at both building a general wine knowledge as well as providing a world-class and thorough introduction to the little-known wines of Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily, the four regions that make up the conceptual region of ‘Terronia’, otherwiseknown as the stunningly-beautiful South of Italy.

Like all classes offered by Silvestro Silvestori’s The Awaiting Table Cookery School in Lecce, Italy, Terronia breaks down the barriers between teacher and student, creating an environment where learning is horizontal, personalised and focused on enjoyment and fun. Held in the Baron’s castle just south of Lecce, Italy, Terronia invites producers to explain their grapes and place and the relationships between them, as well as how their local history and culture informs the wines they produce.

Students can choose from two options: 1) the diploma path, with an a final exam that measures academic rigor of general wine knowledge, a blind tasting and a working understanding of wines of the Italian south, or 2), just take the class for the sheer fun of it, just to learn more about some of the most inviting wines in the world.

Azz! Ma chi è ’sto fighetto italo-americano?

Silvestro si è laureato 3 volte, l’ultima volta in Italia, a Perugia. Dopo un’esperienza d’insegnamento a Bologna, 9 anni fa si trasferisce a Lecce con lo scopo di aprire una scuola di cucina nel centro storico. Nel marzo 2010 si diploma come sommelier. Ogni anno parte in bici per un tour lungo tutto il mezzogiorno da Marsala a Lecce. Insegna cucina salentina e fondamenti sui  vini del mezzogiorno. Cerca moglie…una bella cicciotta.

Che cosè The Awaiting Table Cookery School?

Già da otto anni, The Awaiting Table Cookery School è una scuola di cucina salentina, situata nel centro storico di Lecce. Il proprietario, dott. Silvestro Silvestori, promuove i vini (solo di uve autoctone), i prodotti tipici e la cultura del Mezzogiorno sul mercato anglofono. Lo scopo è quello di aprire nuovi canali commerciali facendo da ponte tra il sud ed il resto del mondo, al fine di superare le barriere linguistiche e culturali. Per incentivare questa politica di promozione, Silvestro punta sul miglioramento qualitativo della produzione nostrana affinchè possa essere autenticamente concorrenziale, cercando di coinvolgere i produttori locali, poichè si sa: “l’unione fa la forza!”. Entro il 2010, Silvestro inaugurerà una nuova scuola per promuovere i vini e le uve di tutto il sud (la Puglia, la Sicilia, la Basilicata e la Calabria). Per maggiori informazioni potete scrivere allo stesso indirizzo e- mail.