Luciana can trace her love for Italian Food from the early stages of her childhood. She would be carefully watching her mother stirring a traditional Venetian polenta or helping her grandmother make the eternal melanzane ripiene.

Luciana's passion for Italian Food was further developed when she met the Simili Sisters. It was to be an experience that she would never look back from. As the Gourmet Traveller article recalls: "Not only is she their biggest fan, she is also following in their footsteps: her cooking school Cucina Italiana, teaches the Simili Sisters' recipes, as well as following their philosophy of introducing the time- honoured traditions of regional Italian cooking to a new generation who, even in Italy, are fast losing these skills." Gourmet Traveller, June 2004.

After graduating from the Simili Sisters' school in Bologna, Luciana opened her first cooking school in Auckland, New Zealand. The media were quick to spot her talent as were the winners of the America’s Cup, Allinghi. Luciana trained the chefs on the multi-million dollar support boats. It was with great enthusiasm that Luciana then opened her cooking school, Cucina Italiana in Sydney in 2002.

With an extensive knowledge of Italian food Luciana strives to teach that it is the simplicity of Italian Food which makes it so special. Through her classes you will learn that Italian Food is not about techniques but carefully balancing ingredients without letting them overpower, giving you the opportunity to discover the real flavour of Italian cuisine. By tasting the food throughout the class, you will learn the balance of each flavour.

OUR PHILOSOPHY…..

If I could define our work, our passion, our philosophy I would repeat the words of any Italian…… “Home – where our souls and heart meet, our days pass by around the kitchen table”. If you inquire further and insist in asking where do you eat well - At home they will confirm with a smile! Oh la vera Cucina, la cucina di casa, la Cucina della mamma.

Our school is the reflection of this home…..this home who will be always in my memories miles away. It is the wonderful smell of the tortellini in brodo that I once had in Bologna on a winter night with my friends Margherita and Valeria Simili, two special people that taught me so much and gave me the Bolognese flavour in my mouth.

It is the word of wisdom of Italian generations that I had the chance to see them fighting for survival outside Italy – it is the look of pleasure of a good friend of mine, Renzo Franceschini when he is confronted with his favourite dish; cappellacci di zucca con il vero ragu Bolognese! Oh his smile! It is the way that you know you gain more because you gave more! And our students are the ones that make this home bigger and bigger, our students are the reason for the light in our door.

The unforgettable Marcella Hazan defined in her book what she could understand of Italian cooking: “However much we roam, we will not be able to say we have tracked down the origin of Italy’s greatest cooking. It is not in the north, or the centre, or the south, or the islands. It is not in Bologna or Florence, in Venice or Genoa, in Rome or Naples or Palermo. It is in all those places, because it is everywhere. Nor is it the created, that is to say “creative” cooking of restaurant chefs. It is the cooking that spans remembered history, that has evolved during the whole course of transmitted skills and intuitions in homes throughout the Italian peninsula, and the islands, in its hamlets, on its farms, in its great cities.”

“Food, whether simple or elaborate, is cooking in style of the family. There is no such thing as Italian Haute Cuisine, because there are no high or low roads in Italian cooking. All roads lead to the home, to la Cucina di casa – the only one that deserves to be called Italian cooking.”