Director: Elizabeth Farrer
A cooking school tucked inside a Venetian palazzo becomes the setting for an unlikely courtship in this 2023 romantic comedy. Director Elizabeth Farrer trades New York boardrooms for canals and market stalls, letting the city itself do a lot of the persuading.
What is A Very Venice Romance about?
Amy works for a wellness startup in New York that wants to launch ready-made meal kits, and her bosses need a credible chef's name attached to the pitch. She sets her sights on Marcello Barone, an Italian chef who left the restaurant grind behind for a quieter life teaching cooking classes in Venice. He turns down her business proposal outright, having been burned by New York once before, so Amy enrolls in his course herself hoping to change his mind from the inside. Between market visits, pasta lessons, and unhurried afternoons along the water, the trip starts reshaping what she actually wants out of the deal. By the time the course wraps, the question isn't only whether Marcello will sign on, but which city, and which pace of life, Amy is willing to choose.
Cast & crew
Stephanie Leonidas leads as Amy, opposite Raniero Monaco Di Lapio as Marcello. Max Krause, J.R. Esposito, Alberto Basaluzzo, and Giovanni James Bertoia round out the supporting circle of colleagues and classmates who populate the cooking school and Amy's New York office.
Context & significance
Shot on location, the film leans hard on Venice's palazzos, canals, and produce markets as a backdrop for a familiar setup: an ambitious professional pulled off her intended track by a slower way of living abroad. It landed in 2023 alongside a broader run of Italy-set romantic comedies built around food, travel, and a career reset, and runs a brisk 84 minutes.
Where & how to watch
A Very Venice Romance can be watched on K-Time with a free account login; browsing the page itself costs nothing. The service is built around Farsi-speaking audiences, and this title carries both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles for viewers who prefer either option.