‘Every road leads to Rome’ - newly re-branded pasta business, Aemelia, is a lockdown success story
Husband and wife team’s order and meticulous neatness during their pasta making is soothing for Gaby Soutar in a chaotic and unpredictable world.
Business is booming for these pasta evangelists For those finding lockdown particularly stressful, the Instagram videos from new business, Aemilia, are a meditative treat.
Watch them and the order and meticulous neatness of their pasta production line is soothing in a chaotic and unpredictable world.
There’s sweet potato agnolotti being cut at perfect intervals with a cutting wheel. The sheets of golden tagliatelle are sliced, unfolded, and shaken out, like Rapunzel’s hair.
Each tortellino, after being swiftly wound round a finger tip, has to have the circumference of a 5p piece, while farfalle have humbug stripes.
It’s like a savoury Italian version of Willy Wonka’s factory. Or maybe we should call him Gugliemo Wonka.
These creations will all be portioned into brown boxes, with labels featuring looping calligraphy, and slipped into branded paper bags, along with cylinders of sage butter, wrapped in cloth and tied with string, pots of ragu and slabs of focaccia.
Their cargo will be dropped off from their commercial kitchen at Coulston Estate to homes in Edinburgh and East Lothian, as part of this increasingly successful lockdown business.
It’s owned by a twentysomething couple, Giada Betti and Kipras Preidys.
Kipras (otherwise known as
Kip) is originally from Lithuania, with experience at a number of Edinburgh’s finedining restaurants. When this chef was only 18 years old, he was responsible for running his own evening service at Fraserburgh’s Lighthouse Museum, before moving to the capital.
“I felt like the North East of Scotland is not a huge foodie destination so I moved to Edinburgh attracted by all the different opportunities available in the city, “he says.
His wife, Giada, comes from Imola in Italy’s Emiliaromagna region. Her background is also in hospitality, and she met her future husband in a restaurant kitchen.
The idea for their project came to them just before Covid hit.
“We were on holiday in Imola and Bologna before the pandemic,” says Giada. “When we came back we weren’t working and found ourselves at home with so much time on our hands - definitely something we weren’t used to in hospitality. We usually make fresh pasta at home and, back in May, we thought why not try and sell it? It was time to finally
work for ourselves. After testing the market by delivering within a five mile radius, the response was amazing”.
Now they deliver weekly
– to Edinburgh on Wednesday and Thursday, and East Lothian on Friday and Saturday.
They originally named the business Made by Kip, before briefly pausing, but they’ve recently relaunched and rebranded to Aemilia.
“The name was always on our minds, “says Giada. “Via Aemilia is the main road that crosses the region of Emiliaromagna and as they say "every road leads to Rome", so we thought it would be a perfect name to represent where everything started”.
When they kicked off Made by Kip, back in May 2020, they were doing no more than 35 deliveries per week, but in January this year, with their new name and fresh enthusiasm, they’re up to 60.
“We start at 4.30am in the morning,” says Giada.
They’re not only making vast swathes of pasta, but also slow cooking their own sugo and sauces, which might range from a simple ragu or sage butter, to cream, caramelised onion and mushroom.
All that carb and butter makes for the ultimate comfort food. As Giada says, “Nothing can beat a freshly made hot bowl of tortellini in brodo during these cold days”.
The most luxurious and most popular item on their newly launched website is the winter truffle uovo in ravioli - “a twist on the famous dish from Imola, a runny East Fortune farm