Straight to the sauce

In search of that authentic taste of Italy? You can’t do better than a Teresa Lambarelli Pasta Sauce. Catherine Roth visits her in Chesterfield

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If you’re looking for a taste of Italy here in Derbyshire then open a jar of Teresa Lambarelli’s award-winning pasta sauces with their traditional and contemporary flavours. Three times winner of the Chesterfield Food and Drink Awards, Teresa cooks authentic pasta sauces from the kitchen in her Italian Caffé and Pasta Bar in Chesterfield.

Teresa has always had a love of food and cooking. Her father ran Lambarellis, an Italian restaurant and takeaway in Chesterfield, and it was he who taught Teresa how to cook authentic Italian dishes.

Teresa says, ‘Dad wanted me to take over the takeaway but I was going through a divorce at the time and wasn’t in a position to do so.’ She left the family business in 2004 and enrolled instead on a beauty course at college. Whilst she was there a lecturer – previously one of Teresa’s customers who visited the takeaway – asked her if she would make a bolognese sauce for her. It was the beginning of Teresa Lambarelli’s pasta sauces, later followed by a selection of oils, salad and balsamic dressings, olive pastes and Italian biscotti.

Despite having cooked countless sauces for people to take away, fulfilling this request required Teresa to take a completely different approach. Not only would she be working from her kitchen at home but she also had to consider the shelf life and packaging of what she produced. Teresa set herself a budget of £1,000, which included adapting her kitchen and turning a storeroom into one suitable for food storage to meet necessary food hygiene requirements. Six weeks later she was producing pasta sauces in small tubs.