Our Mission:
                
              To provide a warm atmosphere for your family where 
              we can share the traditional cuisines of Italy. 
              Our food will always be fun, fresh and filled with love.
       
       

   

Vision:

Pasta Amore combines the cooking traditions 
and ingredients of Italy with creativity, 
providing a modern twist on timeless classics.

Our vision for the future is to grow and learn 
along with our customers. In doing so, we aim 
to provide an atmosphere that enables this growth 
and fuels the passion that lives within the essence 
of the brand.

The approach of Pasta Amore is to 
develop our brand with the understanding of both 
our culture and consumer insights. Within our vision 
always lives the promise of inspiring 
creativity, conversation and quality.

Giovanni Novella
Executive Chef

Not everyone knows how to fillet and prepare a branzino, but Chef Giovanni Novella was practically 
born doing it. The fish, otherwise known as European sea bass, is daily fare in Giovanni's 
hometown of Torre del Grecco, a fishing port between Naples and Sorrento in southern Italy. 
Giovanni was lucky enough to grow up right on the water, and fish almost every day in the summer. 
It's no wonder his style of cooking finds its center around seafood.

"In Italy, the food culture is very powerful. I knew right away that cooking was my passion, and 
something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life," says Giovanni. So at age 14, he decided 
to study at a culinary school in Sorrento. Afterward, he was accepted into a prestigious pastry 
program in Amalfi, where he specialized in southern Italian desserts.

During his five years of culinary school, Giovanni honed his skills in small restaurants along 
the coast of southern Italy. After graduating, he traveled and cooked across Europe, expanding
his horizons to Germany, Greece, France, all around Italy, and finally to a luxury cruise ship 
that traveled around South America. Despite the wide variety of environments and foods he 
encountered, the one constant was restaurant life, and restaurant people.

"Restaurant people tend to be creative and open to new ideas. I like to be challenged, and be 
around people and a culture that is always pushing me to challenge myself to be better."

After his culinary journey, he spent three years working in Italy in fine dining before moving 
to San Diego, California, in 2011. Cooking in San Diego gave Giovanni an opportunity to balance 
his experiences from Italy and his travels with American-style cuisine, and to blend the flavors 
from different continents. 

"My favorite thing about restaurants is using ingredients - both local and from around the 
world - to create new dishes and flavors that let each product shine," says Giovanni, who loves 
getting to know the customers and hearing their feedback on new or classic dishes.