Pasta on pole: Barilla stages grand Italian dinner party on Monza's starting grid
Hours before the engines roared at the Italian Grand Prix, the usually cacophonous Monza starting grid fell quiet — and was transformed into the setting for one of the most unusual dinner parties in Formula 1 history. Barilla, the pasta giant and Official F1 Partner, staged 'La Tavolata', inviting hundreds of past and present drivers, team members, journalists and fans to share a single, impossibly long table draped in white cloth with accents of dark blue, stretching beneath the iconic five red lights.
An evening on the grid
Down an eerily quiet pit lane — a place usually punctuated by the shriek of wheel guns and the hubbub of mechanics — guests were handed a pass labelled 'La Tavolata' along with a much-needed handheld fan. Though evening had arrived, the tarmac still insistently emitted the heat it had absorbed through the day.
'La Tavolata' is an Italian term for a large crowd sharing a meal at a single, shared table — and that was exactly what filled the starting grid. Wine glasses sparkled in the last of the sun's light while the empty grandstands, decorated only with a Ferrari flag, stood as a reminder of the action to come.
Small tables were surrounded by stalls offering bruschetta, cured meat, cheese, champagne and breadsticks beneath canopies in the same white and blue colourway. A roaming band of four players worked the crowd with Beatles crowd-pleasers before switching to irresistible Italian classics such as Mambo Italiano and Sarà Perché Ti Amo, making it practically impossible for guests not to smile.
Bottura's al dente challenge
At the heart of the evening was Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura, who admitted that the prospect of cooking pasta perfectly al dente for hundreds of people was a somewhat daunting task.
"I'm a little bit stressed because I'm thinking about 35 kilos of pasta that has to come out al dente at least – it's not easy and my hands are sweating," Bottura conceded in his welcome speech. "I feel a little butterfly in my stomach, but okay, it's part of the challenge so I'll do it."
He framed the night as the purest embodiment of Italian food culture: "This is exactly the example of the classic Italian Tavolata. You know, we sit together, we share together. This is Italian cuisine and this is the reason because the Italian cuisine has been named UNESCO Heritage. It's not because Italian cuisine is one cuisine. There are 100,000 cuisines in Italy."
"It's their ritual of sitting around the table, sharing a meal in a refectory or in a three Michelin star restaurant. It's the same. Cooking is an act of love, that's it. And when you do it, you do it for your friends, for your family, or for the F1 family."
From Ligurian pesto to 'Lap Two'
The three-course menu opened with Fusilloni Al Bronzo al Pesto, described on the menu as a "reinterpretation of traditional Ligurian pesto" with pea cream and toasted breadcrumbs — a "testimony to extraordinary flavours" built on fresh, aromatic herbs that blended into what many guests agreed was the most vibrant green pesto they had ever seen.
The main course was affectionately titled 'Lap Two' to tie in further with the location. Barilla went above and beyond its role as an F1 Official Partner by creating a limited-edition pasta called Gran Ruote, its shape inspired by wheels, with spokes perfectly placed to capture all the sauce. In this case that sauce was a delightfully simple cacio e pepe made from Parmigiano Reggiano and pepper.
Dessert — 'L'essenza del Sole Siciliano' — brought the final lap of the meal. "For me, when I think about Italy and I think of the sun, I think Sicily," Bottura explained. "The whole dessert is like the power of Sicily with all the citrus and almonds and capers and coffee and the fruit of Sicily." It proved a refreshing conclusion to a night built on shared conversation.
Barilla's Monza memories
Paolo Barilla, a former racer himself, captured the spirit of the occasion with a story from his childhood, told from beneath the very grandstand that loomed over the table.
"In 1974 I was there," he relayed to the crowd of diners. "I wanted to see Formula 1 from very close, but it was far. Two Ferraris were leading – Clay Regazzoni and Niki Lauda – and both of them retired. I was 13 years old. I was desperate. Disaster! My first Grand Prix, my heart beating for Ferrari and I see two Ferraris stop at the beginning of the pit lane."
"In 1975, Ferrari got first place with Clay Regazzoni and third place with Niki and they won the championship. And then I go to 1980, when I made the first lap with Formula Fiat Abarth here. Going there to the first chicane, I felt the immensity of this place, the history on my shoulders, and I was amazed by the emotion I felt. I would say that Monza, between the highs and lows, it's an emotional place."
"To have all of you here around the table where we want the people to get together, share the emotion, and then on Sunday they have to fight. The fight is a part of life, but the friendship around the table is very important."
A community unlike any other
By the end of the night, guests had shared conversations with figures from all walks of F1, coming together to bask in a community unlike any other — and, in doing so, achieving exactly what La Tavolata set out to do before the fight resumed on Sunday at the Temple of Speed.