From Scratch is part meet-cute comfort food, part tearful romance

Not even 10 minutes into the first episode of Netflix’s limited series From Scratch, our leading lady voices what proves to be a kind of thesis statement for what soon becomes a swoon-worthy romantic story: “I came here to have my own renaissance,” she tells a newfound friend in Florence, Italy, where the Texas-born soon-to-be-law-school dropout moved to pursue her own artistic ambitions. “Last thing I want is to find love while I’m here.” Famous last words, right? Because, of course, soon after Amy (Zoe Saldaña) makes such a pronouncement, she finds herself all but going back on her word. The culprit? Lino (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a dashing Sicilian chef who woos her and gives her the kind of summer fling Diane Lane films are made of.

Then again, anyone who’s read Tembi Locke’s memoir of the same name (or who notices the melancholic notes the series begins with) knows that From Scratch is more than a lush, swoon-worthy romp through Italy. But it does begin as one. Its opening episode makes for an extended (and quite picturesque) meet-cute where we witness Amy and Lino’s first flush of love and lust, all of it filled with many a sun-dappled daytime street encounter and lots of late night culinary meetings. Soon, though, the series takes us back to Los Angeles, where the young couple struggle to turn that first spark into a viable long-term relationship.

Several obstacles stand in their way though. There’s Lino’s immigration status, which forces the talented chef (“you’re an artist,” Amy tells him, without one hint of irony if plenty of self-deprecation) to plate subpar Italian-American cuisine at a restaurant he’d never be caught dead eating at. There’s Amy’s dwindling artistic aspirations; she’s caught, instead, employed at an art gallery working for the kind of folks she should be calling colleagues instead. And then, to add to their modern-day star-crossed-lovers vibe, they each have their own families to contend with. His has all but disowned him (he left for America to pursue his passion, imagine that!), while hers proves to be a thorn in her side, what with their strong-willed ideas about what proper careers and futures should look like. (Hint: They do not involve artists and chefs and wayward ideas about artistic integrity.)

The push and pull between the two families, a rural Sicilian one led by an all-too-proud patriarch, the other a splintered Texan one with many a big personality, puts into further relief just how unique Amy and Lino are. They are both driven by emotions, forgoing the pragmatic spirit each of their families extoll. Theirs is a relationship forged on passion, for each other and for their respective callings—he, a chef, she, a visual artist.