This beautiful and traditional, harp-like tool uses wire strings to cut sheets of fresh pasta into ribbons of fettuccine.

With 36 wide-spaced wires on one side, and 72 tighter-spaced wires on the other, it’s an easy and efficient way to make batches of even-width pasta.

‘Chitarra’ (pronounced key-tahr-rah) is the Italian translation of ‘guitar’, but it is also the name for the type of spaghetti made by this authentic pasta-cutting machine.

Simply lay a sheet of fresh pasta on top of the strings, and use a rolling pin to push it onto the wires, slicing the pasta sheet into elegant ribbons which fall down the gently-sloped base – ready to be dried or cooked.