From Benevento to the Scottish capital — forty years of passion, sacrifice, and Sunday ragù far from home
Table Of Contents
- A Restaurant Born of Three Generations
- The Story: From Benevento to Edinburgh
- Florinda: Learning to Love a World That Wasn't Hers
- Life Behind the Counter: Seven Days a Week
- The Philosophy of Quality Over Quantity
- The Best Compliment: Feeling at Home
- What They Miss Most About Italy
Some stories don't appear in travel guides. They are slow-cooked, like a Sunday sauce, carrying the scent of a homeland and the quiet weight of those who chose to build something extraordinary far from home. The story of Mennato and Florinda, who run Mamma Roma Restaurant in the heart of Edinburgh, is one of those stories.
1. A Restaurant Born of Three Generations
Forty years ago, long before social media turned every dish into a photo opportunity, a man from the province of Benevento landed in Scotland with the determination of someone who had no other option.
Today, in the intimate but precious space of Mamma Roma Restaurant at 4 Antiga Street in Edinburgh, three generations of that same family continue to carry forward a culinary tradition that is, above all else, an act of love.
The restaurant officially opened in 1995, but its roots go back much further.
Mennato's father had already been in Scotland since 1976–77, running a first venue in a smaller, more peripheral town.
When the time came to move into the city, Mamma Roma was born — described by Mennato himself with an expression that says everything: "It was my baby. From the beginning I built it with my father, and then I carried it on. I raised it."
Today, that "baby" has grown into something that spans three generations.
Mennato and Florinda run it together, and recently their own son has begun working there too.
The tradition endures — and with it, the sense that something genuinely lasting has been built here, one plate at a time.
"It was my baby. Like a third child."
— Mennato, owner of Mamma Roma Restaurant
2. The Story: From Benevento to Edinburgh
Benevento — a Campanian province about sixty kilometres north-east of Naples.
A land of rolling hills, vineyards and ancient food traditions.
That is where Mennato's family comes from, and that is where their culture of food as a collective moment, as a language of affection, as an identity worth protecting — even, and especially, when far from home — was born.
Understanding Mamma Roma means understanding where it came from.
And that story begins not with a restaurant in Edinburgh, but with a suitcase and a one-way ticket.
2a. The Grandfather, the Suitcase, and Australia
Florinda speaks with visible admiration about her father-in-law: "He was a man who left with a suitcase and went to Australia with absolutely nothing."
In Australia he did not open a restaurant.
Instead, he started a tomato farm — a detail that feels almost poetic for a family that would later build its entire culinary identity around the simplicity of that very fruit.
After Australia, he returned to Italy, attempted to open a restaurant with his brother — but it did not work out.
He then found himself in Edinburgh, starting again from scratch.
He opened a venue in a more peripheral area of Scotland, and from there the family's real story in the Scottish restaurant industry began.
"He was a man who started with nothing and kept starting again," Florinda says. "I deeply admire him for that."
2b. Mennato's Apprenticeship: Washing Dishes Before Cooking
At fourteen years old, Mennato joined his father in Scotland.
And from that point began what in Italian is called a proper gavetta — an apprenticeship from the very ground up: first the dishes, then the kitchen, then the dining floor, then management.
"It's what my father-in-law always said," recounts Florinda, "anyone in the restaurant business has to know how to do everything, because you have to know what you're selling."
The Philosophy of the Apprenticeship
Knowing every corner of your own business — from the kitchen to the dining room, from the till to supplier relations — is not just practical wisdom. It is an act of respect towards the work itself and towards the customer. Someone who has never washed a dish can rarely understand what it means to serve food with genuine care.
This holistic vision of the trade has become one of Mamma Roma's cultural pillars.
It is not just about cooking; it is about welcoming, managing, and problem-solving.
Mennato is "a jack of all trades," Florinda emphasises: "He learned to work the floor, he learned to sort out operational problems, the management — all of it."
And that breadth of knowledge, earned the hard way over decades, is precisely what makes the difference when something goes wrong at ten o'clock on a Friday night.
3. Florinda: Learning to Love a World That Wasn't Hers
Florinda's story is different from her husband's, and perhaps that is what makes it so interesting.
She did not grow up in the restaurant trade.
She never did an apprenticeship at the stove as a child.
She found herself "catapulted into this world" when she joined the family, but she made a conscious, deliberate choice to wait before fully stepping into it.
For many years she chose to focus on her children.
"This is a business that takes up so much time — from your social life, from your family life. I preferred to be there for the kids until they were old enough for me to start working."
It was a decision made not out of hesitation, but out of genuine priority: she understood that someone had to be present at home, and she chose to be that person.
When the moment finally came, joining the restaurant did her good — her words.
It made her feel less alone, more fulfilled, and it gave her economic independence.
"It's been about fifteen years now that I work here," she says. "And it has honestly made me feel more complete."
The fact that she chose this path — rather than simply being swept along by it — comes through in every word she uses to describe the experience.
There is pride there, and ownership, and that matters.
4. Life Behind the Counter: Seven Days a Week
Running a family restaurant is not as romantic as it looks from the outside.
It means opening at eleven in the morning and closing after midnight.
It means Christmas in the kitchen.
It means the phone ringing on a Sunday.
It means having no weekends, because the weekend is precisely when everyone else finally goes out for dinner, and you have to be there for them.
Mennato says it with the tired laugh of someone who has told this story a thousand times: "The only moment I am alone is when I go to the bathroom."
Everyone laughs — but the exhaustion is real, and it is daily.
4a. Family and Work: A Difficult Balance
The most delicate subject is coexistence: working together, always, every single day, with your partner.
Florinda describes it with disarming honesty: "Like most men, he tends to take it out on whoever is closest — his wife. If something goes wrong, I am the one who gets it. In the beginning I just absorbed it. Now I am starting to stand up for myself and set proper limits."
There is something quietly powerful in how she says it — not with bitterness, but with the calm clarity of someone who has figured out how to protect herself without abandoning the thing she has built.
But there is another side to it.
That same intensity has also meant more time together — a paradox of the restaurateur's life: you are always around your family, but never truly present for them in the way you would want.
"There are no Sundays, no peaceful Christmases. You bring the work home with you, always."
Yet despite all of this, both of them carry on.
Both of them believe in it.
And now, with their son working alongside them, there is something deeply satisfying in the continuity — in the knowledge that what was built is worth passing on.
5. The Philosophy of Quality Over Quantity
In a restaurant landscape increasingly dominated by chains, by high-turnover venues, and by the relentless pursuit of covers at any cost, Mamma Roma has chosen a different direction.
It is not an economically obvious choice.
But it is a deeply identity-defining one, and Mennato and Florinda talk about it with the conviction of people who have thought it through and decided, clearly, where they stand.
"I'd rather do thirty fewer covers — but those twenty I have, I want them to feel good, eat in peace, and leave satisfied."
— Mennato
Florinda adds a clear-eyed analysis: "The difference has to be made by quality. If you cut corners on quality and push quantity instead, you will end up with exactly the kind of customers you don't want."
A customer attracted by cheap abundance is not the same customer who will return to savour something authentic.
They are different markets, different experiences, different kinds of relationships — and Mamma Roma has made its choice.
THE PROBLEM WITH CHAINS IN MODERN HOSPITALITY
The critique of large chains is direct: "There are these chains that just sell, sell, sell — it is all numbers, numbers, numbers. And with customers too: they churn them through and push them out, churn them through and push them out."
In this model, even families with young children are seen as a problem to be managed and moved on.
"You lose the desire to go out to a restaurant with your family and just enjoy the time together."
Mamma Roma does the opposite.
If a child is having a meltdown, that is not a problem — it is part of life.
"The parent has to feel welcome too," Mennato insists. Because a great restaurant, at its best, is an extension of the home.
And that is precisely what Mamma Roma strives to be.
5a. The Secret: The Simplicity of Ingredients
So what is the real ingredient that sets a place like Mamma Roma apart, without compromising the quality of the food?
Mennato's answer is refreshingly straightforward: "Keeping the culture of our food alive. The simplicity of the ingredients. The way we do it in Italy — but put together well."
He uses an analogy that reveals just how much food is, for him, a genuine form of art: "I sometimes compare food to fashion, to clothing. Italians are brilliant at everything — the way they mix ingredients, the way they invent great dishes out of simple things."
A ripe tomato. An aubergine. A leaf of fresh basil. Combined with imagination and technique, they become something unforgettable.
"Even a simple spaghetti al pomodoro," he says, "if you make it well, is extraordinary.
But if you drop the pasta in before the water boils, and serve it with cold sauce — it's nothing."
The Italian Art of Simplicity
A plate of spaghetti al pomodoro might seem trivial.
But the difference between a memorable version and a forgettable one often comes down to a few technical details — executed with attention, patience, and genuine respect for the ingredient.
That gap is exactly where Mamma Roma lives.
5b. How Italian Food Is Seen in Scotland
Italian cuisine in Scotland has undergone many "contaminations" over the years, as Mennato describes them.
Customers who ask for lasagne with mushrooms, or with a side salad, because they have had it that way somewhere else.
Or who complain when they find the traditional version on their plate: "They say: this is not the original lasagne. But it is!"
He laughs, but there is genuine frustration underneath it — the frustration of a craftsman whose craft has been distorted by imitation.
Mamma Roma holds its ground.
Traditions are maintained, roots are respected. Of course, presentation has evolved: the enormous portions of the 1990s have given way to more elegant, more carefully plated dishes — but the taste, the substance, the intention, remain exactly the same.
"The eye wants its share too," he admits.
"We have updated all the dishes, made them look more refined. But the flavour is the same as it always was."
6. The Best Compliment: Feeling at Home
There are restaurants that serve you. And there are restaurants that welcome you.
The difference is felt immediately — in the way they look at you when you walk in, in the tone of voice when you leave, in that intangible sense that someone on the other side of the counter genuinely cares whether you enjoyed yourself.
Mamma Roma is built entirely on this second kind of experience.
"The greatest compliment we can receive — I say it all the time — is when people tell us they felt at home. That, to me, is the most beautiful compliment for anyone who does this work and is here seven days a week."
It is not just a business strategy.
It is a reflection of who they are and where they come from.
In a city like Edinburgh — cosmopolitan, full of tourists and residents from every corner of the world — building this sense of genuine family warmth requires daily work.
It is made up of small gestures and a consistency that cannot be faked over time.
Regular customers are greeted not with a formal "good morning" but with a "ciao," with kisses on the cheek, "just like you do in Italy," Florinda smiles.
And American tourists who return three or four evenings running during the same week's holiday prove that something has genuinely landed.
"You can eat food anywhere. But when someone tells you they felt at home — that is the most beautiful compliment there is."
— Mennato
The restaurant's philosophy, distilled to its essence: "Don't treat people like numbers. Make them feel at home. Give them a little piece of Italy — real Italy, in both the food and the service."
It sounds simple.
It is, in fact, one of the most difficult things to sustain over decades.
Mamma Roma has managed it.
7. What They Miss Most About Italy
Before wrapping up the interview, comes the most personal question of all: what do you miss most about Italy?
The answer is immediate, and quietly moving in its simplicity.
"Family, that is for sure," says Mennato.
But there is something else too — something subtler and at the same time more universal.
"What I miss most about Italy is the people. Here in Scotland they are wonderful — but we have this innate warmth. And that is something you genuinely miss."
It is not a complaint; it is an honest observation from someone who has lived in both worlds long enough to understand the difference clearly.
The warmth of southern Italy — expansive, sunny, tactile, immediate — is difficult to replicate in another cultural context.
That is why, when Italian customers walk through the door, it is "like going home for a little while."
There is that instant familiarity, that ease of human contact that elsewhere might take years to build.
Florinda adds a touch of realism: not every Italian customer is easy to please. Some expect flavours identical to what they would eat in Naples or Rome, forgetting that even a tomato bought in Italy tastes different from one bought in Edinburgh. "It is the air, the soil," she explains patiently.
"Even when we use Italian products, it is just different.
So if you truly want that exact taste — eat at home.
We do our absolute best here."
And in the end, that is exactly the point: the best they can do, every single day, with care and attention.
Not absolute perfection — "sometimes it happens that we give only fifty percent," Mennato admits — but always with heart, always with intention.
Always as though they were cooking for their own family. Because, in every way that matters, that is precisely what they are doing.
"Italy is wonderful. With all its ups and downs, it remains, in my view, the most beautiful country in the world."
— Mennato
Article based on the interview by Real Italian Restaurants · Mamma Roma Restaurant, 4 Antiga Street, Edinburgh, Sco
source https://www.realitalianrestaurants.com/blog/mamma-roma-in-edinburgh-a-story-of-family-food-and-italian-identity
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