Ristorante Paradiso

Nicoletta travels to Rome intending to confront the mother who left her with her grandmother and concealed her existence from a new husband. The trail leads to Casetta dell'Orso, a restaurant whose older, bespectacled staff have a quiet charm of their own.

Instead of exposing everything at once, Nicoletta begins training in its kitchen and grows attracted to the reserved waiter Claudio. Working among people with complicated histories softens her certainty about her mother's choices, while her own feelings teach her that affection rarely follows a simple plan.