Since 2018, the Mele sisters have been serving the heavenly flavours of Italian cuisine to the people of Cork. The sisters started cooking when they were just two little girls playing around their Grandma’s kitchen in the foot of the Appeninnes mountains in Italy. When they moved to Ireland, they decided to open Nonna Pepita to honour their grandma Pepita and her legacy, so they now use the recipes they inherited from her with a little twist: they would use just the finest Irish products combined with high quality imported Italian goods.
Pepita
Pepita has been a professional cook for over 50 years. She owns a small family restaurant in the town of Vallo di Nera, Italy, well-known in the region for its delicious pizzas, and she also owns a cookery book full of traditional recipes. As any good Italian grandmother, she enjoys preparing Sunday meals for the whole family, and she is very proud that some of her grandchildren are following her steps.
Giulia
Giulia Mele first fell in love with cooking when she was a little girl playing around the kitchen with her grandmother Pepita. Growing up she always knew that she would like to be a professional chef like her grandma, so when the time came, she moved to Florence to study cooking. She decided to move to Ireland after talking to her sister Francesca, who was already living here, about how amazing it would be to open a restaurant and share the incredible recipes they inherited from their grandmother.
Francesca
When the Mele sisters were kids cooking with her grandma, Francesca was the one in charge of dealing with the "customers", or the family members they were cooking for. She always had the entrepeneur soul in her, so she decided to go to Rome and study Business. After that, she moved to Ireland to studie her Masters Degree, and she fell in love with Cork, its people, its landscapes and its music. When her sister Giulia came to visit, they instantly knew Cork would be the perfect place to open that restaurant they always dreamt about.