Italian classics receive a cheeky update in Dutch-Indonesian chef and cookbook author Vanja van der Leeden's English-language debut, Italopunk: 145 Recipes to Shock Your Nonna. This collection of recipes, photos, and profiles takes readers to the Italy the author loves: vibrant, creative, and a bit rough around the edges. Classic flavor combinations and techniques are prized, but van der Leeden successfully makes the case that if people love their cuisine, they ought to let it grow.

While not Italian by birth, Vanja van der Leeden spent years living and cooking in Italy and developed a deep love of the country she first visited as a child. It's this love that drove her to create Italopunk, a book dedicated to reinventing, or at least updating, much-loved trattoria foods. Take her cacio e pepe con fave e menta, prepared with fava beans and mint. "Cacio e pepe is a Roman classic. The preparation shows how simple yet ingenious Italian cuisine is."

This appreciation is combined with a bit of historical context as the author describes her updated dishes. She observes that the red, green, and white caprese was invented in the 1920s "when the Italians were feeling particularly patriotic"; she roasts the tomatoes and adds a pop of flavor with fennel-chili breadcrumbs. Van der Leeden doesn't mince words when pushing back against ideas she feels are holding the food culture back. When introducing her "blasphemous" carbonara, which she says is "the pasta that conservative Italians are very theatrical and purist about while many hardly seem to know the history of the dish," she explains its origin. Then she suggests adding a shot of vodka.

With her husband, photographer Remko Kraaijeveld, van der Leeden establishes the less tourist-centric appeal of several Italian locales: Florence, Milan, Naples, Rome, Sicily, Turin, and Bologna. Photos of food are set alongside street art, everyday architecture and activities, market sights, and objects. A gorgeous Italian vista, a fish monger at work, and a mural of a busty mermaid companionably share the pages.

Van der Leeden's dishes remain the focus, however. Lovingly scuffed countertops, vintage dinnerware, and messy fingers make for a decidedly earthy presentation and make every dish a visual delight. Approachable, conversational recipes are organized by course and include a quick primer on making and cooking pasta. For readers outside Italy, the author helpfully includes substitutions and suggestions for sourcing high-quality, fresh ingredients.

Italopunk is a plant-forward book, lighter on meat and fish, in line with the author's approach to ethical, climate, and cost concerns. Meat cuts and preparations are selected to use as much of the animal as possible, and recipes include ingredients such as oxtail and veal tongue. Meat lovers will be more than happy to cook a version of the meatballs that U2's lead singer Bono savors, adapted for home cooks. Here, meat and fish aren't presented alone, but as composed dishes, such as the porchetta with lentil salad and roasted beets. Produce isn't relegated to the role of side dish, it's essential. Try dishes like Mezze maniche con ragù di cipolle (pasta with onion ragù and parsley breadcrumbs), which the author says is just as good as pasta Genovese, which relies on beef for richness.

Italopunk intentionally is not focused entirely on van der Leeden. In addition to citing her inspiration for many of these recipes, she features several "Italian chefs who dare to break free from the conservative corner in the country itself, to take Italian cuisine into the future without compromising the soul of that fine folk cuisine." These profiles tie together the gorgeous, eclectic photos and mouthwatering recipes and give the book a depth and character that keep it from feeling like food tourism.

In a deviation from the classic rice balls filled with seasoned meat, the author fills her arancini with eggplant, pistachio pesto, or shrimp ragù. She introduces readers to this recipe and to Sicilian food traditions with a profile of chef Emilia Strazzanti, whose Sicilian Arab heritage and years spent in London and Paris have informed how and what she cooks. Roman chef Sarah Cicolini is "combative and serious, always looking to improve, constantly open to innovation, and cooks her balls off." These chefs are innovative, but they also call upon generations of culinary and agricultural tradition as they strive to use all parts of an animal, carefully source ingredients, and work to retain a sustainable food system in the face of the changing Italian climate. In Milan, "offal activist" Diego Rossi, who cooks modern trattoria food informed by culinary traditions, says, "Tradition means history. To understand where we come from, we have to know that history, that's the only way you can face the future."

Readers who crave Italian food will find much to love in Italopunk, with plenty of inspiration for the creatives and instruction for those not quite ready to break all the rules. Fans of Yotam Ottolenghi, Samin Nosrat, and books like Pasta, Pane, Vino will want to pick this up. --Suzanne Krohn

Vanja van der Leeden (photo: Remko Kraaijeveld)

Vanja van der Leeden, a Dutch-Indonesian chef and culinary writer, combines her rich cultural background with her experiences living in Italy in her debut cookbook, Italopunk: 145 Recipes to Shock Your Nonna. Formerly a restaurant chef, van der Leeden now focuses on creating nutritious comfort food, writing cookbooks, and producing cooking videos from her home kitchen. Her work reflects her love for strong flavors, culinary experimentation, and the balance between healthy eating and indulgence. Italopunk (Tra Publishing) hits kitchen shelves on July 29, 2025.

You aren't Italian, but Italopunk is clearly written from a place of deep love and understanding of modern Italian cuisine. What inspired this book? What do you hope readers take away from it?

I might not be Italian in this life, but I was in a former life! I have been wanting to write this book for decades. My time in Italy (living in Rome and Florence) inspired the book, but it's also my instinct to look at things from another perspective. I always ask myself "why" a recipe is done in a certain way. Sometimes the answer is satisfactory and sometimes you realize a recipe benefits from evolution. I love Italian cuisine so much, but with all due respect, it could be sexier at times. Italy has such beautiful produce and vegetables, they can be used in more creative ways than as insalata mista or spinach cooked in water and then drained (that's reductive, but still). Living in Italy and speaking the language has made it possible to dive deep into the culture and its cuisine. It has made me look further than the usual clichés, and I hope readers will do the same. I hope they will broaden their Italian recipe repertoire, I hope they will realize that tradition is important for cultural preservation, but without evolution and creativity, a cuisine will die. 

You feature several chefs and restaurateurs in the book. Why did you decide to include these profiles and how did you decide who to talk about?

First of all, I wanted some Italian backup to make my message stronger, because who am I? I wanted to show the reader that I am not the only one who thinks Italian recipes need refreshing. If you say something needs to change, you have to show how and in a positive way: respecting tradition and building on that. That's where the chefs come in. 

The selection was made by research online, through books (for example The New Cucina Italiana by Laura Lazzaroni) and by following chefs and food photographers on social media. I was not interested in haute cuisine, but elevated trattoria food. Italian cuisine is a people's kitchen, and I wanted to maintain its soul. Therefore, I have chosen chefs that cook trattoria-like comfort food, but of the highest quality. And no Michelin stars. 

All the chefs in the book, including you, have strong opinions on ingredients: what to buy, where and when to source them, and how to design meals that align with culinary, social, and ecological values. How should readers shop as they cook through this book?

Italian cuisine is so successful because it's simple. It's simple because the high-quality produce does most of the work for you. If you can, go to a farmers market or a good quality grocery store for your veg, fish, meat, and cheese. It's going to make all the difference. Also, try to follow the seasons. Seasonal produce tastes better, which makes your job (making a delicious meal) easier. Usually it's also more sustainable, although that is a difficult and complex claim to make. Of course you can shop at a supermarket as well, but you might have to add more salt, cheese, anchovies, etc., to make your dish flavorful. 

Italopunk is full of recipes, tips and interviews, but it also has the feel of an irreverent travel blog. Tell us about the photo choices. How did you decide what to include and what version or versions of Italy were you hoping to share?

The photos were taken by my husband, Remko Kraaijeveld, who is an acclaimed food photographer in the Netherlands. We made a deal that we wouldn't click the usual cliché stuff that you see in Italian cookbooks. No Fiat 500s, no red Vespas, no nonnas in dark spaces with floured hands, no cypress trees in Tuscany, et cetera. Remko wanted to share the Italy that I experienced while living there. That was a lot more edgy, raw, and adventurous than what the average tourist experiences. With these images, we wanted to say, "If you love Italy, you also need to love its scruffy edges." Remko carefully looked at the colors of the different cities in Italy and reflected those in the backgrounds. We also collected napkins, placemats, vintage ice coupes, and pieces of textile during our trips to Italy for the styling. 

If you were to make a meal with only recipes in the book, what would we be eating?

A lot, that's for sure! This question also depends on the season, but let's give it a go. If I was cooking a simple weekday meal, I would make the pasta with chickpeas, chard, and 'nduja (Pasta con ceci, bietola e 'nduja). Or the puttanesca with whole-wheat pasta (Puttanesca integrale). Quick, hearty, and fairly healthy. For a dinner party, I would start with the crudo of sea bass and citrus-samphire salsa (Crudo di spigola), then the savory tarte tatin of eggplant (Tortino alla parmagiana), then carbonara (Carbonara blasfema) with a shot of vodka, and after that a vegetable dish, like roasted bell peppers with anchovy sauce and burrata (Peperoni con bagna cauda e burrata). To finish, either coffee zabaglione (Zabaglione con caffè) or tiramisu with sesame (Tiramisesamo). If we were in summer, I'd go for the whipped buffalo ricotta with strawberries and balsamic (Fragole con balsamico e ricotta). But the peach gelato with thyme and sweet red wine (Pêche elba) is also tempting.

What cookbooks have you loved recently?

Recent books are all Dutch and might not speak to you. I did notice that many involved beans. I keep coming back to books like the Gjelina cookbook (Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California), Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat and all the Locatelli books (Made in Sicily). And of course I am a big fan of Ottolenghi; my friends actually call me "Yotam van der Leeden." Oh and there's a book on my wish list: Food You Want to Eat by Thomas Straker (August 2025), of London- based restaurant Strakers. --Suzanne Krohn