Founded in Florence in 2018 by a chef from Kerala and a journalist from Florence. Today a brigade from several regions of India, and a team that builds weddings across Italy and abroad.
The name
Nura means light.
The word is Aramaic. The project started in 2013 as an association, cooking Kerala dishes for friends in Florence.
In 2018 it became NURA: the first Indian food truck in Italy, then a catering company, then a wedding kitchen. Gambero Rosso wrote about it in the first year.
The scale has changed since. The principles have not: the quality of the ingredients, knowledge of each dish, respect for its identity, and attention to the people it is cooked for.
The founders
Two roles, kept distinct.
Basheer leads the kitchen and the culinary direction. Marta leads planning, coordination and the relationship with the client.
Founder and Head Chef
Basheerkutty Mansoor
From Kerala, in South India. He left young, lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates, and built his experience in restaurants and kitchens in Italy. In Florence, cooking the dishes he grew up with for family and friends became the association India a Casa Tua in 2013, and NURA in 2018.
Around NURA he has built an international brigade: chefs from different regions and culinary traditions, so that one kitchen can cook Gujarati one day and Sri Lankan the next, with an authentic link to each family's recipes.
Tradition, for him, does not mean standing still. Live cooking, the tandoor, street food and food stations are the ways he has found to bring Indian cuisine into the world of destination weddings and the villas of Italy and Europe.
Cook for hundreds of guests with the same care as for someone sitting at your own table.
Co-founder and Event Director
Marta Casati
Born in Florence, she spent about ten years in Milan working in journalism, communication and contemporary art: criticism, curating, exhibitions. Work that trained an eye for image, space, and projects where different elements have to find a common language.
Her path crossed Basheer's on a journey to India in 2008. When NURA was founded in 2018, two very different experiences converged. As it grew, she took over the planning and organisation of the events and became the main contact for couples, planners, venues and the professionals around them.
She follows the path from the first enquiry to the final proposal, often with families organising their wedding from thousands of kilometres away. For her, catering is never an isolated element: it has to work with the venue, the creative concept, the timing and the guests' whole experience.
Listening, clarity and trust, from the first contact to the day.
Val d'Orcia, 2025. Photograph by Beatrice Moricci.
The team
A brigade from several regions.
There is no single Indian cuisine. The kitchen is built to match: chefs from different regions and traditions, led by Basheer.
Punjabi, Gujarati, South Indian and Sri Lankan hands in one brigade
Service staff who know the order of a wedding day
The people who draw the floor and build the kitchen
Marta on the phone with the family, for months
Milestones
From a food truck to Vogue.
2018
NURA is founded, with the first Indian food truck in Italy.
First article in Gambero Rosso, as a business to watch.
2019
Chosen by ICSE as a case study for the workshop on foreign entrepreneurship in Tuscany.
With FAI, the event Alla Corte del Maharaja at Villa Necchi Campiglio, Milan.
A feature in La Cucina Italiana.
2020
In the Gambero Rosso guide among the best street food in Italy.
NURA Delivery starts, covering Florence and seven municipalities.
2021
An article by the critic Leonardo Romanelli.
Cooking show by Basheer at MIDA 2021, Fortezza da Basso, Florence.
2022
A six-page feature in Novella Cucina on Basheer and the kitchen.
Food partner of Firenze Rocks, the ATP Tennis Open Tour and Corri la Vita.
2023
Food partner of River to River, the Indian film festival in Florence.
2024
Cooking show by Basheer at Teatro Cinema La Compagnia, Florence.
The record year for weddings catered.
2025
First presence at Pitti Uomo.
A NURA wedding published in Vogue India, then a second one in British Vogue.
Press
In print and online.
The three that matter most to families are Vogue UK, Vogue India and Style Me Pretty. The rest is the record of a kitchen that started on the street.
Vogue UK2025
Vogue India2025
Style Me Pretty2025
Gambero Rosso2019
La Cucina Italiana2019
Novella Cucina2022
Vogue UK 2025
Vogue India 2025
Style Me Pretty 2025
Gambero Rosso 2019
La Cucina Italiana 2019
Novella Cucina 2022
The Florentine 2021
Tuscany People 2019
Firenze Urban Lifestyle 2022
Full links are on the NURA press page and available on request.
