A life built
around pizza.

The answer came back to the food

When we asked Chef Giann where he wanted Solo Italiano to be in ten years, he began with the work it would take to get there.

Growing would mean training more people. It would mean trusting them to care about the food the way he does. For now, he wants to keep making good pizza and looking after the regular customers who come back for it.

It was a thoughtful answer to a question that could easily have become a list of future plans. Giann understands what expansion asks of a small food business, and he wants the quality to come with it.

Inside the Solo Italiano truck is a red oven carrying its name, with stacks of pizza boxes above the serving window. Giann stands in his apron, a pizza in hand. Our conversation with him kept returning to how much he enjoys making this food.

Finding something he wanted to keep doing

Giann remembers the happiness he felt when he first began stretching pizza dough. In the interview, he describes that experience as finding his passion. He had found something he wanted to keep doing for a very long time.

Working in Italian restaurants and learning from other pizza chefs helped him develop that interest. He speaks with appreciation about the people he learned from and the difference good teaching made to his own work.

At Solo Italiano, that experience comes through in the kind of pizza he wants to make. He prefers a restrained approach to toppings, with room to taste the base and the ingredients together. It is the Italian style of pizza he enjoys cooking, and the one he has chosen to build his business around.

He has clear preferences, but the most revealing part of the conversation is the enjoyment behind them. He knows the pizza he likes making, and he wants his customers to experience it at its best.

His advice for your first order

If you are trying his pizza for the first time, Giann recommends starting with a Margherita.

His explanation is practical. With fewer toppings competing for attention, you can get a clearer sense of the pizza itself. You notice the base and how the flavours sit together. It is the order he suggests when someone wants to understand what he makes.

When we tasted it, our reaction was immediate. It tasted beautiful, with a melting-in-the-mouth feeling that made his explanation about simplicity make sense.

There was a lovely moment in the conversation when Giann reminded us that we could be honest if we did not like it. We liked it. The enthusiasm in our answer needed very little explanation.

The work behind the serving window

Giann is candid about what it takes to turn an interest in food into a working service. Cooking for family and cooking for a crowd demand different things. Organisation matters. So does discipline.

A customer sees the pizza that reaches the window. Giann thinks about the preparation and organisation needed to get it there. He makes a simple comparison in the interview: feeding a family and feeding a hundred people are different jobs.

The enjoyment is still there. So is an understanding that enthusiasm alone will not carry a busy service. The food has to be prepared, the work has to be organised, and people need to know what they are doing.

Growing without losing what matters

That brings us back to the question about the future.

Giann has not ruled out doing more. He is clear that growing would require people who are properly trained and able to maintain the standards he wants. Until those pieces are in place, he is comfortable concentrating on the business as it is.

His regular customers are part of that answer. Keeping the food good for the people who already support Solo Italiano matters to him now, before any larger plan becomes a reality.

For someone discovering Solo Italiano for the first time, the beginning is simpler. Find out where the truck is serving next. Meet the person behind the oven. And if you are unsure what to order, Giann has already offered a place to start.

A Margherita.