Lab Noon . Flavors & Encounters by Saghar Setareh

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Lab Noon . Flavors & Encounters by Saghar Setareh

Lab Noon is the food and photography blog of Saghar Setareh, food writer and photographer based in Rome, via Tehran.

• food writer & photographer | Rome (via Tehran)
• cookbook "Pomegranates & Artichokes"
• newsletter: "noon"
• Rome food tours
• university lectures & photography workshops She's focused on Iranian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Italian cuisine, through a lens of human stories.

18/12/2025

If there’s one word that sums up my last quadrimester of 2025, it’s “academic.”

In September this year, I started teaching Food Visual Merchandising to the undergrad design students at the University of Perugia . I focused a lot on creative direction and food photography, and yesterday the first group of my students took their exams, presenting beautiful, compelling and sometimes breathtaking projects.

Early in October (in fact the day of the big general strike for Gaza), I started a professional master in Food Innovation and Business Strategies at Italian Tech Academy of Talent Garden , in partnership with the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo . I have long dreamed of being part of UNISG; I seriously considered applying for a PhD there a couple of years ago and I had the pleasure of being invited there to present my book, Pomegranates & Artichokes.

This course took me to Turin twice, a city I love to visit (and dine in), once at the beginning of October and once last week for the epic ending in . We had an array of very knowledgeable teachers and delved into everything from food systems to culinary anthropology, to sustainability and innovation, to business development and finance. And although keeping up with the work of my own university class, the project work of the master (which was for none other than ) and all the other photography, writing and teaching work meant I spent many sleepless nights during these months, I’m glad I gave myself the challenge. This was my 40th birthday gift to myself, to step out of my comfort zone and plant some seeds that hopefully will grow into something new.

As I reflect upon this strange and draining year, the people, places and ideas of these last four months definitely stand out as a highlight. Now I need to rest and decompress, unplug and unwind, but I’m already dreaming up new dreams. My love and passion for hands-on cooking, soil and sustainability is reaffirmed and I’m hoping for some stimulating projects and collaborations with some of the brilliant people I’ve met, as well as dear old friends.

08/12/2025

Today, December 8, is an important bank holiday in Italy, officially celebrating Conception of the Virgin Mary, but kinda unofficially is the day you put up your Christmas gear, trees and lights and tidbits. 🎄✨

Here’s a friendly reminder to support your favorite authors this time of the year by purchasing their (cook)books as presents. Books make lovely, meaningful and practical gifts and it does make a difference to the professional lives of author.

And if you like it, please consider gifting Pomegranates & Artichokes this holiday season as it does look quite festive and jolly as well, with many recipes fitting for the winter celebrations. Here’s one of them: a simple cake with a date frosting and walnuts (inspired by the south of Iran). Enjoy!

13/11/2025

A few of my favorite snaps from our lady photoshoot at the iconic Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole, at the silver coast of Tuscany.

It was an absolute delight to photograph the restaurants of Hotel Il Pellicano. Grazie mille Louise Scio and the team for the renewed trust.

Top notch food styling by

30/09/2025

It has been a while since I posted something personal and since there are many new faces here (and many old ones are gone), I thought I’d reintroduce myself.

Welcome everyone! My name is Saghar Setareh and I’m a food photographer and writer. I come from Iran but have been calling Rome home for nearly 19 years now, making it the place I’ve spent the majority of my years.

I have written a book about this transition, Pomegranates & Artichokes: Recipes and Memories of a Journey from Iran to Italy, (Melograni e Carciofi in italiano).

I teach cooking classes and run food tours in Rome, develop and photograph recipes. I have photographed many cookbooks, hotels and restaurants. At the moment I teach Food Visual Merchandising at the University of Perugia. I also hold lectures on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food cultures.

I have been quiet both here and on my newsletter not only because of offline work, but also because it’s not business as usual, and all I feel like writing about is rage and grief: about living contemporaneously with a genocide, about my own country bombed and ripped and in free fall, and the precariousness of lives like mine, those from my part of the world, those who migrated elsewhere, in a world on fire.

So I keep my writing private (for now) and what I can, I share in the stories. It’s not forever silence, nor a total lack of hope. It’s simply a quieter season. I wanted to say hi because I just got these photos of me sporting this gorgeous apron and thought it’d be a shame not to share them. There are several styles; please check them out.

And please come say hi! It’s been too long.

Photo credit:

P.S. Please excuse my somewhat disheveled appearance too, as this was June 13, the day I was holding my last event (a summer meze feast) at Latteria Studio, so not only had I been cooking all day, but I had also not slept a wink that night, as it was the night when Israel started bombing Iran, including several parts of Tehran. I think I lost 10 years of my life that night as my worst nightmare came true.

26/07/2025

Nope, there ain’t no “both side”ing this.

Stop the infantilization. Gazans don’t need someone to feed them. They need to be free so that they can feed themselves from their own very fertile land.

The cover photo is by from Gaza. I can’t, I just can’t share the pictures of hungry babies.

Last two slides are from .odyssey.

P.S. learning from the bests, I’m closing the comments for this post.

20/06/2025

Seven days have passed since Israel started bombing my home, Iran. I’ve gone off food and sleep, and between maniacally checking my phone for news and sharing what I can in Stories, I haven’t had the bandwidth to write something proper. This compelling statement by Parastou Forouhar deeply resonated with me, so I took the liberty of translating it to post here. You can read the original statement in Farsi and German on ’s page.

11/06/2025

A few more of my personal favorite snaps from the photo shoot at the magical (Aurelio restaurant and the bar that brings you movie standard room service from entrecôte, to spaghetti to French fries that you can have in bed, or the drinks and sandwiches that you can enjoy at the beach club).

Old world Italian summer meets the modern dolce vita. Pastels, stripes and dreams. And there’s an actually orto (veg garden), next to the citrus orchard. Food was truly superb.

A dream of a photo shoot.

Food styling by

18/04/2025

Just in time for , I have written about a (maybe) unexpected chocolate cake and a lot of nerdy musings about rice puddings, blancmanges and other ancient “white stews”.

The cake is made with black rice (yes, you read that right), lots of beautiful milk chocolate and beetroots (yes, again, you read it eight). The luscious and extremely simple frosting is mascarpone and a coulis of mix berries. You're welcome.

Recipe and nerdy stories can be found on my newsletter (link in the bio).

This recipe has been developed in collaboration with which sustainably produces the most incredible organic rice in the heart of Maremma, Tuscany.

31/03/2025

Since it’s still technically , and also the celebrations, I thought I’d share the recipe for these delicious tiny walnut cookies my mom has baked for Nowruz ever since I can remember. They only use egg yolks, but with the egg whites you can make the those little coconut cookies sitting in the same little dish, just as the their recipe sits right next to this one in my cookbook (the recipe for those lemon-saffron-salted pistachios and almonds is only a couple of pages later.

Tiny walnut cookies
(Shirni gerdooyi) | شیرینی گردویی

Makes 40–50 tiny cookies

2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
a few drops of natural vanilla extract
2/3 cup (80 g) very coarsely chopped walnuts
finely ground pistachios, to garnish

Preheat the oven to 160°C (315°F). Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Using an electric stand mixer or hand-held beaters, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla until the mixture is white and fluffy, doubled in size, and no grain of sugar can be felt if you rub some between your thumb and index finger. Fold the walnuts through in circular motions.

With the help of two teaspoons, put little mounds of the batter, the size of a large hazelnut (about 1/4 teaspoon), on the baking tray, leaving about 5 cm (2 inches) of space in between. Sprinkle each cookie with a little ground pistachio. (You may need to bake them in two batches, depending on the size of the tray.) Bake for. about 10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are golden; don’t let them brown.

Remove from the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes on the baking tray before gently removing with a spatula. Once cooled, the cookies will keep in an airtight container in the pantry for a couple of weeks, if you resist eating them in one go.

Pomegranates & Artichokes, recipes and memories of a journey from Iran to Italy, (2023, Murdoch Books) page 114

14/03/2025

On my latest newsletter, (edible) things to hold on to just before winter ends. Forgive the less than perfect photography; they were all taken in real life situations and the light of my tiny kitchen isn't great.

Link in bio and in stories.

04/03/2025

🥞🍊🧈🍯
Pancake day! I'm a huge pancake fan and I love having late breakfast that also counts as lunch with a hearty batch of pancakes. Mine are usually lean (as opposed to the whole philosophy of ), since I learned to make me them in my dire diet days.

These were made with a simple batter of flour, milk, just one egg and a lot of oar bran (because fiber!). Drizzled on top however was brown butter (a tiny amount cooked in a tiny pan until dark golden and smelling nutty), mixed with a little honey so that it would all be satisfactorily runny, into which I grated the zest of orange.
The orange itself was then scattered on the pancakes and the whole thing was drizzled with brown-butter-honey-with-orange zest (first one layer, then another).

Indirizzo

Rome

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