Meet our Committee
Eleonora Vanello
Co-Chair
Eleonora discovered Slow Food when was living in Italy. She was very fascinated by SF’s events as they tell the story and traditions behind each produce. Volunteering with SFE is giving her the opportunity to know the land where she lives and the food and drink traditions, understand what biodiversity and climate change really means and have a lot of fun with people that share her passion.
Lucia Ortisi
Secretary
Lucia Ortisi is a qualified chef and gastronomer who is passionate about the role that food plays in enriching our culture and identity.
Italian by birth, Lucia started out practicing law until her entrepreneurial instincts got the better of her. Keen to share her love of Mediterranean culture with the wider world, she set up and directed a study abroad programme in her native Sicily that taught everything from Mediterranean diet to immigration and was eventually acquired by an American university.
Now firmly established in Edinburgh with her family, Lucia has completed her studies in gastronomy at Queen Margaret University, so that she is in a better position to put nutritious, sustainable and delicious food at the centre of her work.
Steven Brown
Co-Chair & Chef Alliance for Edinburgh
Steve true passion for food was ignited, working for fellow Chef Alliance member Neil Forbes at Edinburgh's Atrium restaurant. Stints in Germany, France, London & New York have all fueled Steve's love for food. Steve returned to his native Scotland with his young family in 2017, setting up his business, Pop. which aims to educate and inspire cooks of all ages and abilities in their homes, school and places of work as well as many pop-ups in unusual locations across the region.
Peter Mountford-Smith
Big Table Leader
Peter became involved in food when working in outside catering during a gap year. Like many people, he started cooking as a student and gradually developed this skill during a career unrelated to food. He now cooks from scratch most days in a variety of cuisines. As an active member of the Green Party, he is interested in sustainable food systems and the wider politics of food. He joined the Slow Food movement because it reflects his views about the importance of good quality, tasty food from sustainable sources, and because it actively promotes these values.
Federica Rigoselli
Film Nights Coordinator
Federica moved in Edinburgh from Italy in 2017. Because of her studies in Agriculture, the time spent in a rural area, and her passion for food and cooking, she developed during the years an interest for local, sustainable and seasonal ingredients. She joined Slow Food to help spread its Good, Clean and Fair message here in Edinburgh.
Adela Trofin
Adela is a freelance digital communicator by day and an advocate of good, clean, fair food every day. Brought up with home-cooked meals and seasonal ingredients grown by both her grandmother on an allotment and by her parents on a veggie patch behind the building where they were living, conviviality, commitment to real food, supporting sustainable small farming are values deeply rooted in her.
Involved with the Slow Food movement since 2012, she's been the Slow Food Iași Convivium Leader for 6 years while living in Romania. Since she's moved to Scotland, she continues her pursuit of local gastronomy and culinary heritage while constantly learning how our food choices shape us as individuals, as communities, as constants of change within a globalized world.