The name is a bilingual pun. Alla Carta — Italian for "on paper" but also evoking à la carte, the freedom to choose — is a biannual international publication that takes a distinctively Italian approach to fashion, art, and design. The magazine believes in paper at a time when the internet may appear to be the only viable medium, and it honours one of Italy's oldest traditions by conducting every interview around a table. Conviviality is not a styling choice. It is the editorial method.
Published worldwide and printed with the production values that Italian design culture demands, Alla Carta operates in the space between luxury fashion magazine and cultural journal. The editorial mix treats high-end fashion not as an end in itself but as an entry point into larger conversations about craft, aesthetics, and the way objects carry meaning. The interviews — conducted over meals, in the spirit of shared time and unhurried conversation — have a warmth and specificity that distinguish them from the transactional Q&As that dominate most fashion media.
There is something quietly radical about insisting that every conversation in your magazine must happen face to face, over food, with no time pressure. It is expensive, impractical, and impossible to scale — which is precisely the point. In a media landscape where interviews are increasingly conducted over email or Zoom, where a publicist monitors every answer and a deadline compresses every thought, Alla Carta insists on the one thing that technology cannot replicate: the experience of sitting across from another human being, sharing a meal, and seeing where the conversation goes.
In a publishing landscape increasingly dominated by screens and speed, Alla Carta is an ode to the two things that Italian culture has always valued above efficiency: the pleasure of beautiful materials and the pleasure of sitting down together. That these pleasures happen to produce a better magazine is not a coincidence. It is the oldest lesson in Italian culture: if you want to know someone, feed them first.