About Us
Armando is from Napoli (South Italy) he went to Scuola Alberghiera (cooking school) and trained at Rapallo, Rimini and Castel Fusano to name few places , he then worked on crews liner such as Galileo Galilei for many years. After leaving the ship he then worked for the Continental Hotel (now Hyatt) in Auckland New Zealand.
After a while he owned his own restaurant , Vesuvio restaurant which was very popular with the locals. Armando owned several Italian restaurants in Auckland where he was well known for his love and passion of cooking. The latest restaurant he had was Santa Lucia restaurant which was is one of the top Italian restaurants in the city.
Armando and his wife then moved to the Gold Coast and bought a place in Main Beach called La Roma they turned it into a casual Italian restaurant and shortly after bought another restaurant in Surfers Paradise now called Santa Lucia restaurant.
Both chefs are very passionate about food, they love cooking Authentic Italian dishes and Armando native of Napoli is very keen on keeping the traditional recipes. He does create his own dishes and if requested will cook what ever the customer requires however when it comes to the authentic recipes he prefers to keep them the way they are cooked in Italy. One thing which gets him grumpy is when he is asked to cook a penne or spaghetti boscaiola with cream as he says boascaiola has a tomato base sauce not cream !! In Italian cooking a lot of the dishes have a story behind them and that is the reason why they have the specific ingredients or/and name they have been given.
Murielle his wife enjoys cooking ancient roman recipes , on a couple occasions she had to prepare small banquets for groups of students studying Ancient Rome. She loves baking and Cassata siciliana is her favourite but enjoys baking specialities of Naples such as pastiera di grano.
They often go back to Napoli to make sure they stay in touch with what is going on there, they spend time at the family restaurant but they also have friends with restaurants who specialise in banquets and weddings which is a big thing in Italy.
So remember most of our dishes are prepared following authentic recipes and when you dine in one of our restaurants we would like you to feel you have been transported all the way to Italy. We hope you enjoy the experience.
Ciao a presto
