My love of cooking was inspired at an early age by my grandmother and my aunt, who used only the finest and freshest of local, seasonal ingredients in our small, rural kitchen in the medieval village of Manoppello in the province of Pescara in Italy.

After several years learning my craft in some of the best kitchens in Europe, I moved to the UK and spent six years as Rick Stein’s senior sous chef at The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow.

Keen to test my knowledge and explore Britain, I moved to Newcastle to lead the kitchen at Jesmond Dene House, working with Terry Laybourne’s Michelin-inspired cuisine, it is here I earned the kitchen three AA Rosette Subsequently, I spent three years as head chef at The George Hotel in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, two AA Rosettes followed by stints at the George Hotel in Buckden, Cambridgeshire, again earning two AA Rosettes and Hotel Endsleigh at Milton Abbot.