Would it surprise you to know the oldest Italian restaurant in California is located in San Francisco? Fior d’Italia opened in 1886. The restaurant’s name means, “flower of Italy”. Over the decades, the restaurant has changed ownership and even briefly closed for about 6 months in 2012. Despite the brief changes and closing, customers keep coming b...

Orange-based Chapman University received a $1.5 million gift from the Ferrucci family to establish the Ferrucci Institute for Italian Experience and Research in the university’s Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science. The institute provides students the opportunity to fly to Italy and participate at a film festival in Bologna, stu...

St. Mary Catholic Church in Orange invites parishioners and the general public to join in celebrating the Feast Day of St. Joseph on Sunday. The Feast of Saint Joseph commemorates the end of a drought and looming famine in Sicily during the Middle Ages. Sicilians usually build a “St. Joseph Table” and wear red as a symbol of the celebration. This t...

At 103 years young, you'd never guess Teresa Moore is a gym rat. She hits the gym three to four times a week. "It gives me energy," she said. With her hair, makeup and jewels perfectly in place, she gets a pump from lifting weights, and revving up her heart rate on the treadmill. Her daughter Sheila Moore said the gym is her mom's happy place.  "Th...

Father Louis M. Solcia, the associate pastor at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Little Italy, was a kind and gentle soul, and he had the patience of a saint. He was a good listener and truly cared about what people said and was always compassionate and understanding. He was truly one of a kind! I believe because of his personality many Italian fam...

Join the Bay Area Italian community at the Quakes Italian Heritage Night! Come unite as the local Italian community and cheer on the Quakes as they take on Toronto FC on March 25th at 7:30PM at PayPal Park. $10 of each ticket benefits Little Italy San Jose. Buy tickets here. Local Italian Community Partners: Italian Heritage Celebration, Italian Co...

Across the street from Henry’s Hi-Life, I ordered a $16 True Romance right where the $3.50 breakfast used to be. The old building at the corner of St. John Street and N. Almaden Boulevard has transformed itself yet again into a glorious interconnected mesh of component parts. The former Enoteca La Storia restaurant space now contains multiple Itali...

The TASTE AWARDS are pleased to announce this year’s recipient of the Andrew Zimmern Discovery Award. THE ANDREW ZIMMERN DISCOVERY AWARD honors the mission to discover new cultures, new flavors, or new talent. The inaugural winners of this new award were Andrew Zimmern and Tyler Florence. This year’s winner, based on years of contributions to culin...

As of last March 1, Raffaella Valentini is the new Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles. Roman, born in 1975, Valentini graduated in political science from the University of Rome and entered the diplomatic career in 2003. Her first assignment at the Farnesina is at the Directorate General for Development Cooperation. In 2008, the first mandate ab...

San Diego's nearly 70 year-old red sauce Italian restaurant Nicolosi's has relocated for the fourth time in its long history and will reopen this week in East County. Sicily-native Salvatore Nicolosi opened the original Nicolosi's as a bakery in 1952 in the Mission Hills neighborhood before moving it to 40th and El Cajon Boulevard in 1954. In 1991,...