Irish nettles help Italian chef win Naples pasta competition

Giovanni Mannino, a 24-year-old pasta maker from Palermo now working in Dublin, won the Campionato della Pasta in Naples with trofie built around nettles he foraged in County Carlow. The dish, called Trofie Bilingue, or Trofie Between Two Cultures, carried baby potatoes, chive flowers, peas and pine nuts alongside a nettle pesto made from greens he found in Aghade.

Mannino’s route to Naples was as unusual as the plate itself. He moved to County Carlow at 18 after seeing a notice for Lisnavagh House offering food and accommodation in exchange for work in the estate gardens. He went on to work in the kitchen there, then at Kilkea Castle and Burtown House near Athy, before moving to Dublin, where he now works as a pasta maker at Grano in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.

He said the idea for the winning dish came during a visit to friends building a house in Aghade, where he noticed nettles growing in abundance. He brought the ingredient back into his kitchen in Ireland, turned it into pesto, and carried the finished dish to Naples after coming through a qualifying stage in Florence. The final was held at the Stazione Marittima in Naples during the 2026 Campionato della Pasta fatta a mano, part of DMED, the Salone della Dieta Mediterranea.

The judges rewarded more than technique. They were struck by the creativity of the dish and by the personal story running through it, from Palermo to Carlow and then back into an Italian competition floor. Mannino summed up that connection plainly: “The dish is like a huge thank you to Ireland,” he said. The win also came with the competition’s ceramic trophy, the Pettorello.

For pasta makers, the lesson is hard to miss. Mannino did not win by trying to smother trofie in novelty for novelty’s sake. He used a plant that grows wild in both countries, one that still gets overlooked in Irish cooking, and made it carry the memory of the places and kitchens that shaped him. In Naples, that nettle note did exactly what the best pasta ideas do: it made a classic shape feel more alive, not less Italian.