Dispensa #7
At a first glance, bilingual Italian food magazine Dispensa looks like any other independent food title: it’s tidy, it’s filled with elegant photographs of white napkins and solid silverware, and it has that Michelin star vibe that Lucky Peach set out to subvert. At a second glance though, Dispensa is actually doing something a lot more interesting.
Amongst pages filled with quite traditional food journalism, one particular article caught our eye, and that’s a piece about the making of chewing gum (above). It’s treated with that same attention to detail and care as the mag's interviews with lauded chefs; in its own quiet way, Dispensa subverts too. Another surprise is that the title is printed on paper made from food waste: what appears to be elegant and pristine actually has a bit more of a gritty and surprising foundation.
Issue seven takes its cue from childhood. The editor quotes Bruno Munari in the introduction, who believed that ‘keeping the spirit of childhood alive in your life means maintaining a curiosity for knowledge’. Taking inspiration from seeing the world through a child's eyes, Dispensa is more irreverent and whimsical than you might initially expect.