Talented Longford chef praises family for instilling love of authentic Italian cooking

An accomplished Longford town chef and restaurant owner, who offers customers an authentic taste of Italy, is grateful to her parents and the solid experience she gained in the family business.

Lisa Vocella, the head chef and owner at Vocella's on Main Street, grew up immersed in food and customer service as her parents Peter and Patricia ran Luigi's fast food restaurant.

All of the dishes are made to order from start to finish by the 29 year-old and her colleague chef Vincent Meldrum.

Lisa and her husband Benny opened the doors of Vocella's in July 2018, but the cooking flair and connection with locals was sown several decades prior to that.

"I worked with my mam and dad next door in Luigi's for many years and I always wanted to be a chef and I went off and did my own thing," she said. "They bought the unit where Vocella's is off Pat Stenson," she said. "It was an old chemist, and it was idle for many years and in the meantime I trained up, I was working in other restaurants and eventually in 2018 I took the place over."

Lisa said she loved cooking from a young age and she recalls how she would often spend weekends cooking with her grandmother Libera on her mother's side during her visits to Longford and in Italy.

The Vocella family originally hails from the town of Terelle in the Italian mountains and Lisa also has fond memories of cooking and spending time with her grandmother Addolorata on her father's side in the region.

Lisa is proud of her Italian roots and Vocella's restaurant is a homage to the rich culinary influences she grew up with and is hugely popular with local diners.

"I started working when I was 11 in Luigi's and I was mad to start. There was even earlier memories when my parents obviously wouldn't let me work but I was eager to get going," she said. "So yeah, I worked with them for years until I got out of school and I went to college."

She said her and her older sister Antonella were brought up on delicious pasta dishes and pizza and they had a great grounding in Italian cooking.

Lisa graduated with first class honours from DIT after completing a four year degree in Culinary Arts at Cathal Brugha Street and she gained valuable working experience.

She believes the experience of having a connection with Luigi's customers was a big advantage when they opened Vocella's, but they also maximised that opportunity to create a positive impression.

"It would have been my mother and father's name next door that was known and that would have gotten people to come in the door here because they had certain kinds of expectations, but now we have built the name for ourselves over time," she added.

Vocella's is a multi-award winning restaurant and in 2024 it was named best Longford restaurant in the highly-regarded Irish Restaurant Awards.

They were also honoured with Best wine experience and Best Customer Service awards in 2022 at the event and they have won up to seven prestigious awards in recent years.

Vocella's has five full-time staff, which includes Lisa and Benny and five part-time staff and she is thankful to their hardworking and dedicated workers.

"We use fresh, locally sourced ingredients in all of our dishes," she said.

The meats and fish are also locally sourced and are butchered and cleaved in house and the wine is sourced from smaller, lesser known producers,

Vocella's was open less than two years when the Covid-19 pandemic struck but it was only closed for two days before it reopened to serve take-away meals.

Lisa is thankful to their loyal customers who supported them through those times.

"It's kind of been going from strength to strength, like even after Covid and stuff like that, we've been kind of getting busier and this business has been improving in general," she added.

Lisa has not forgotten where it all started and she still helps her parents in Luigi's whenever she can.

"I still kind of give a hand every now and again in there so it's always still a part of life," she added.

Lisa stated they will continue to work hard and offer the best service they can and she is optimistic about the future.

"I suppose we will just keep at it, keep the name up, keep consistently working," she said. "God knows what the future holds. I might open a number two somewhere, I'm not sure."

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