Food has always been the language of my family.

I grew up in an Italian immigrant home where life centered around the kitchen. Meals were made from scratch, recipes were never written down, and I learned by standing beside my nonne and my mother—watching, tasting, repeating, and slowly learning by instinct.

My roots are deeply Southern Italian, with family from Napoli, Sorrento, and Muro Lucano, alongside paternal roots from Piacenza in Northern Italy. At the same time, I was heavily shaped by the culture and cuisine of Bologna, where my parents spent almost two decades living before I later made Italy my home as well.

Between the Southern regions of my heritage and my 'adopted' heritage of the Emilia-Romagna region, I grew up surrounded by very different expressions of Italian cooking: the bright, rustic simplicity of Southern food and the rich, slow traditions of the North. Later, living in places such as Padova, Lecce, and Reggio Di Calabria only deepened my understanding of how profoundly regional Italian food truly is—how every town, every family, and every kitchen carries its own traditions, techniques, and sense of identity.

Today, those influences come together here in Lubbock, Texas through Pasticceria Filomena: a small kitchen rooted in tradition, where everything is made from scratch in small batches using the methods, flavors, and recipes passed down through generations, either in my own family, or through families I met overseas.

At the heart of it all is Filomena.

We named this kitchen in honor of our great-grandmother Filomena, whose recipes and traditions continue to shape everything we make today. Many of the dishes and desserts we prepare today trace directly back to her table. Naming this business after her was never simply about tradition, but rather it was about preserving a legacy of hospitality, craftsmanship, and love expressed through food.

The name Filomena now belongs to another generation in our family as well, making this kitchen feel not only rooted in the past, but deeply connected to the future.

Buon Appetito!