Pranzo Leeds: Meet the chef behind new Italian restaurant that has just opened in Horsforth

The man behind Italian restaurant Pranzo, which has just opened a site in Horsforth, said his journey into the kitchen began young; he had school at the age of 16 to work at his father’s restaurant.

Marco, now 39, said he was “thrown into the deep end” but it led him to develop a love and passion for the dish.

He said: “I've always found that I struggled to find a place where I could go and eat and enjoy a really good bowl of pasta with a nice glass of wine. That's how the whole concept started.

“So I knew what I wanted to do. It took me a few years of planning, a lot of trialling menus at home, cooking it for my wife because a lot of the dishes on the menu are unique to Pranzo. 

“These are dishes that I've made at home many and many times, and I've tweaked. Once I've got the dish absolutely perfect, once I got a menu together in my head, that was when the time was right to open a restaurant. 

“And since the start, the dishes that I've created are still on the menu now six years later, and I can't take them off because they are just favourites for everyone.” 

“I just have to add a vision of what to create. I knew it was good. I knew it was different to what every other restaurant was doing. And it just took off as soon as I opened the first day.”

Marco opened his first restaurant in 2018. Two years later, in the middle of the pandemic, Marco opened his second site in Harrogate.

Wanting to continue to grow the business, he then took on a site in Ilkley in October 2023 before opening Pranzo in Horsforth just two months ago.

Marco said: “The first restaurant was very small and very intimate. It was rustic and every cosy, which is exactly how I pictured a family run restaurant, and then it's just sort of grown and grown and grown. 

“Each restaurant takes a couple years to get fully up and running. I just started looking at new areas where I just saw a gap in the market for what I do. Is there anywhere else doing pasta in these areas? And then I started choosing my areas. I have just chosen Horsforth which is going really well.

“It's a bit surreal really, how it's happened and how big it's grown.” And it’s all thanks to his customers, Marco said. The support they have shown the independent business has “always been very good”. 

“It's always extremely busy, and we always have good feedback. And it's just a great feeling that we have such busy weeks every week and regular customers coming back week after week.”

He added: “I suppose it's quite an achievement, really. Going from having a small restaurant with five members of staff to having 95. Just creating so many jobs and basically pleasing people [with good food]. 

“It's just a very nice feeling to have got to this stage knowing that this has been 20 years in the making, of working and watching, cooking with my mom back in Italy, and learning from my dad, repetition: pasta, pasta, pasta.

“It's just a very nice feeling, a nice achievement to have survived Covid and to get to this stage. It's a bit of a proud moment.”