Did you know that tiramisù literally means “lift me up”? It’s not just a beautiful metaphor: it’s a sweet gesture to get through a bitter moment. “Lift your spirits, your heart and get out of a bad day,” says Valentina Pizzuti, founder of Valentina e Pasqualina, the artisanal tiramisus brand whose everyone talks in Barcelona.
For her, this word goes beyond the dessert traditionally eaten on Sundays in Italy: it sums up a story of women who learned to get up without fuss, with the same discipline with which you whip cream or sprinkle cocoa just in time.
The origin: nonna’s kitchen
The story begins far from Barcelona, Mazzano Romano, a town of 2,000 inhabitants 40 kilometers north of Rome, where time seems to pass at a different pace. There, in a two-story family home – Valentina lived upstairs and her grandmother, Pasqualina, downstairs – the grandmother’s kitchen was the real center of gravity. A stay of intimate conversations and passion for family recipes. “You don’t enter my grandmother’s house through the door. You enter directly through the kitchen window,” Valentina remembers of her childhood. And there, Pasqualina always prepared coffee with mocha, tiramisu or crochet. “Or all three at once,” he adds.
Strawberry tiramisu from Valentina e Pasqualina.
Before going to sleep, Valentina went downstairs every evening to drink a latte bianco, a cup of milk without cocoa that her nonna prepared for her as a little ritual of care. “My grandmother’s cooking is a big part of me,” he says. There he learned something more valuable than any recipe: the meaning of things made with love and the joy of sharing them.
Pasqualina, a woman without roots
At 89 years old, Pasqualina still has this power of unity that only certain women possess: transforming everyday life into a home. In his case, it is not a folkloric element of the so-called Italian tradition, but a part of his biography. Pasqualina He was born in an orphanage and lived there until the age of 13, surrounded by nuns and homeless girls, knowing nothing about their parents. She grew up, created herself and started her own family. Years later, her children returned with her to the orphanage to seek information about her origins. They found nothing.
“We talk so much about tradition and roots, and she doesn’t have any,” Valentina reflects. The paradox is clear: a woman without origins ends up building the type of family that others take for granted. Affection, for him, cannot be expressed in words. It is transmitted with the hands. “Pasqualina doesn’t say ‘I love you’, but shows his love for cooking”, sums up her granddaughter. Valentina understood this well the day when, while she was thinking about the brand, her grandmother whispered to her an unexpected and revealing phrase: “You make me younger.” For the first time, he saw the true effect of the project on Pasqualina: it represented not only a tribute, but a second life.
Pasqualina makes crochet doilies.
For this reason, Valentina decided that the brand could not only carry its name, it did so beyond the simple recipe. “Pasqualina is in the name because the project, basically, It’s a way of putting down roots that life refused him,” he explains.
A second chance for Valentina
The second life was not reserved for the nonna. Valentina arrived at Barcelona in 2017 after years of transfers and resignations. Previously he lived in Rome, Milan and Basel (Switzerland). He studied economics and worked in the pharmaceutical sector and luxury fashion. At Roberto Cavalli, she learned a lesson that continues to guide her today: “When a brand is well made, care is received before they even explain anything to you,” he says.
These were difficult years: resignation from work linked to motherhood and family reconciliation, her mother’s illness and, finally, a separation which forced her to stop. Like so many women who see themselves reflected in this situation, Valentina put herself on pause. “When you leave your job to take care of your family, you have doubts”, admits. Specific doubts: “If you are still capable, if you are still you, what is left of what you were before when no one is looking at you from there?
The rebirth
Valentina found herself alone with two daughters, in a country that was not her own, in deep uncertainty. And then a familiar scene appeared, directly related to his childhood. One afternoon in confinement, while playing with his daughters Leticia and Eva, he prepared his grandmother’s traditional tiramisu. “I couldn’t give them coffee and I started think of different flavors”, remember. Without wanting to, he reconnected with his roots: the one thing that never fails when life gets complicated.
“I had two options: take my daughters and my two suitcases, or do what I did.” And he opted for the second: to tell his own story through a dessert and to rebuild himself. This is how Valentina and Pasqualina were born. First as an idea and, in 2022, it came to fruition in the form of a workshop. Three years later, he took the plunge its own space in the Eixample of Barcelona. “This project allowed me to see myself again as a woman and as a professional, to say to myself: Valentina, you can do this.” Beyond the creation of a brand, what was decisive was what the process gave him back: confidence, self-esteem and a place of his own. Also a different relationship with her daughters: “Perhaps fewer hours together, but a more complete mother.” The girls – who helped label the pots, spent weekends in the workshop and appear in the brand’s imagination – because they are part of the process without becoming a sentimental resource.
From the traditional recipe to its own language
Today, Valentina e Pasqualina saves the traditional recipe of Pasqualina’s tiramisu, the classic, made by hand with authentic mascarpone, fresh egg yolks, pure cocoa and with absolute respect for the artisanal process. From this base, Valentina presents her contemporary look: a living letter that changes every month, new flavors, the individual pot format designed to be enjoyed at home or on the street and an aesthetic taken care of down to the smallest detail. “We go beyond tiramisu as a dessert; we also consider it a lifestyle and part of our history,” he explains.
Tiramisus of different flavors from Valentina e Pasqualina.
The last step of the company was the inauguration of an establishment which insists on defining itself as concept store, as if the tiramisu was, in reality, the excuse for other things to happen. The space, designed by Italian architect Carmelo Zappulla, director of the External Reference studio, translates the duality of the brand into architecture: know-how and technology. “We sought to respect the traditional soul by incorporating innovative elements to create a real dialogue,” he explained during the inauguration. Thus, the lace doilies made by Pasqualina – in collaboration with Adele, Valentina’s mother and other women from her village – float on the ceiling and coexist with pieces created by 3D printing. Everything exudes a marked made in Italy spirit, reinterpreted from Barcelona.
A space to meet
When Valentina talks about the future, the word she repeats the most is not “sales”, but ecosystem. A calendar of events, a space open to brands, conferences and meetings of all kinds to create community, culture and conversation in its house-workshop designed like an art gallery. “To research create a place where you feel comfortable and where beautiful things happen,” he says.
There is also an idea that Valentina clearly formulates: “If the project represented a second life for my grandmother and me, perhaps it can also be a second life for others.” For women who are going through stages of pause, loss of place or isolation. Thus, Valentina e Pasqualina goes beyond offering a dessert: it aspires to become a project capable of cheer up -even if only a little- to those who come to his home and his new home in Barcelona.
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