Family-run, hand-made, slowly cooked — the way Italian restaurants used to be.
Love Food Italia opened its doors in 2018 with a simple idea: to bring the Italian food we grew up with — the real food, made properly, without shortcuts — to the people of Kidderminster.
We started small. A few tables, a wood counter, a kitchen barely big enough for two cooks and a pasta machine. What we had was recipes handed down through generations, a love for the craft, and a stubborn belief that good food doesn't need gimmicks.
Eight years later, not much has changed. The dining room is a little bigger, the wine list a little longer, but the pasta is still rolled each morning and the ragù still simmers for four hours. Some things you don't speed up.
Billy learned to cook from his grandmother in a small village kitchen south of Naples. He still tells the story of the first time she let him roll pasta on his own — he was seven, and she made him do it three times before she was happy.
That obsession with getting it right is still there. You'll find him in the kitchen from seven in the morning, rolling pappardelle, pressing arancini, tasting sauces, refusing to send out anything he wouldn't eat himself.
If the restaurant's quiet, he'll come out for a chat. Ask him about the Chianti. Ask him how long the ragù's been going. You'll get a proper answer — and probably an extra scoop of gelato.
"In Italy, cooking isn't a job. It's how we show love. That's what we try to do here, every day." — Chef Billy
Three principles that shape everything we cook and serve.
Pasta rolled that morning. Sauces simmered from scratch. Bread baked the same day it's served. We buy small and often — the fridge is always almost empty, and that's how we like it.
We don't turn tables every ninety minutes. If you want to linger over a second bottle of Chianti, linger. If you want to chat to the chef, chat. This is a dining room, not a conveyor belt.
No hidden covers. No surprise service charges. What you see on the menu is what you pay. We'd rather earn your return visit than squeeze an extra fiver out of tonight.
Book a table, pop in for the set menu, or just come say hello. The kettle's always on — well, the espresso machine is.
