Founded in 2006 by Alice Waters and Mona Talbott, the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy in Rome was launched as a culinary initiative to provide the AAR community with seasonal, nutritious, and delicious food that nourishes scholarship and conviviality. Our mission is to serve as a model of world-class institutional and intellectual food culture, by producing excellent food and fostering inquiry around the intersection of food, ideas, health, the environment, and society.  We do this by sourcing food from our own garden and local producers, implementing strict environmental kitchen practices, hosting culinary interns, using the kitchen and garden as a way to explore current themes in the academic study of food, and serving as a model to other academies and institutions.  

This all comes together when we gather around the table. There, over delicious and thoughtful food, ideas are exchanged, collaborations are born, and community is created. 

The dining table at the Academy isn’t just delicious; it’s an idea that brings us back to our senses and can be a model for educational institutions everywhere. 
—Alice Waters 

The RSFP kitchen, open Monday through Friday, serves lunch and dinner to members of the Academy community, their guests, and staff for a total of 100-200 meals per day.

Lunch is served buffet style while dinner is served plated or on platters passed at the table.

We practice “nose to tail” and “leaf to root” cooking in our kitchen with the goal of approaching zero food waste.

We source 92% of our food from organically certified producers located within a 400 Km (250 mile) radius and 80% from producers in Central Italy, including Lazio (60%), Campania, Tuscany, Umbria, and Emilia Romagna.

In fall 2008 with guidance from AAR gardeners, the Rome Sustainable Food Project began planting and harvesting the fourteen raised beds in the Mercedes T. and Sid R. Bass Garden of the Academy. Eager to get their hands in the soil, RSFP interns and other volunteers devote several hours a week to garden work. Our 14-bed organic vegetable garden totaling 93 square meters (1000 sq ft) of growing area now provides between 10-15% of our fresh produce, depending on the time of year.  

Our garden is an example of how the regenerative approach can be used in urban gardening: we do not till the soil; we rotate crops, practice companion planting where possible and use compost produced on-site.  

The RSFP internship program is a dynamic and essential component of the project. RSFP hosts eight culinary interns in the kitchen each year, providing value-based training for emerging food professionals.  In addition, we welcome guest chefs from around the world who share their areas of expertise with our entire community. We regularly host symposia, events, and lectures focused on the intersection of food and scholarship. 

Over a morning cappuccino or evening aperitivo, everyone from Fellows and Residents to visitors and academy staff clusters around the bar and gathers at tables to break from work, exchange thoughts and enjoy the community’s company. Where portraits of former fellows line the walls and the Rome Sustainable Food Project’s baked goods are sold warm each morning, the bar at the American Academy in Rome is a bustling hub of social activity.

The RSFP is an ecogastronomic endeavor that supports the mission of the Academy. RSFP strives to create a model for a modern and integrated institutional culinary program. Through partnerships with other organizations and institutions, RSFP is inspiring the adoption of like-minded environmental and intellectual programming around the world.