Francesca Voza moved to Wanaka with a working holiday visa and $600 in her pocket. She’s now a renowned food entrepreneur, with 11 eateries and counting.

If you’ve lost track of the number of businesses that have come about since the Francesca’s food truck first parked up in Wanaka, you’re not alone. Francesca has barely taken a breath since she first built the food truck as a way to stay in Wanaka after moving here for an OE with her husband.

Her most recently-opened business, the Prince Albert English-style pub in Albert Town, was opened by Francesca and business partner James Stapley last week. Their first cookbook, published by Penguin, is due out in October. Another restaurant and a fish and chip shop in Albert Town have added nightlife to the Wanaka fringe suburb, while further afield eateries in Christchurch, Dunedin and Timaru are adding to the foodie destinations in the South Island.

The Wanaka App spoke to Francesca about her love of food, how her early life prepared her for a career in the restaurant business, and how she keeps it all together.

Francesca was born and raised in England, with trips to visit her Dad’s family in Italy influencing her eponymous food style. Her parents had Italian restaurants and Francesca started working in them at a seriously young age.

“I started working for them at six and I managed my first restaurant at 14,” Francesca said.

There were no excuses, Francesca said, and she was doing all aspects of restaurant work before she had even finished school. Members of her Dad’s family that still live in Italy - where she and James Stapley went to write their first cookbook - run restaurants and hotels (one even has a buffalo farm where she learned to make fresh mozzarella) to this day.

Absorbing all that knowledge from a young age undoubtedly helped Francesca get to where she is now; although the origins of her food business were still fairly random and the result of two things. The first, Francesca and her husband (also called James) wanted to find a way to stay in Wanaka; the second evolved from a frustrated comment by her husband.

“James [Stapley] and I used to work together and we would always say to each other ‘what would you serve if you had an Italian restaurant?’ and ‘how would you do this if you had your own restaurant’. Eventually my husband just said ‘would you guys just hurry up and start your own food business?’.

The growth of James and Francesca’s restaurants has surprised her as much as others, and managing so much at the same time is an ongoing juggling act.

“My big thing is to answer every question as it comes through. I try to get everything in a day that needs to be done. If staff need something, as soon as it happens, I react. But I still surprise myself most days.”

Putting out consistently great food across multiple venues in different parts of the country is another test - and one Francesca puts down to having great staff.

“Good management is key,” she said. “My head chef at Francesca’s Italian Kitchen is the first person I ever hired. We try to have good retention.”

Good management is something that allowed James and Francesca to take off to Italy a little over a  year ago to write their cookbook. They continued to work while away, but remote work and opposing time zones meant emails weren’t coming in while Francesca was working.

This allowed the pair to spend more time on the book, discovering and refining recipes. Her favourite recipe from the book, “Fritto Misto”, is something she discovered in Italy and ended up eating daily - together with mozzarella cheese.

“We hiked in Italy in Cinque Terre and would buy this all the time. It’s made with fresh octopus and squid lightly fried and served in a cone. It’s so amazing.”

The cookbook also has all the Francesca’s Italian Kitchen favourites, from polenta fries to tiramisu, and lots and lots of pizza.

“We wanted it to be homely, approachable and rustic,” Francesca said. “We’ve tried to keep it an approachable and affordable cookbook for any kitchen skill level. There’s something for everyone.”

The pair had intended to self publish until Chris “Lumpy” Lumsden from Wanaka Paper Plus brought the team from Penguin Books into Francesca’s for an evening. “They had such a nice night they decided to publish us. We would never have gotten that deal without Lumpy.”

The book’s photography features Wanaka heavily, an intentional choice by Francesca and James.

“We didn’t want it to be all about Italy. Francesca’s began in Wanaka so it was important to showcase it. We don’t want it to just be a cookbook, it’s almost like a memory of Wanaka too.”

Francesca is insistent there aren’t any more eateries in the works right now, but will “never say never” for more in the future.

She hopes to eventually work a little less, but accepts that a seven-day week is a part of doing what she does - for now at least.

“We [she and her husband] used to go hiking every day when we first moved to Wanaka, and go on a lot of overnight hikes. I don’t get a heap of time to get out and about now,” she said.

Working on the food truck in summer does offer its perks though, like the opportunity to travel all over the South Island for events. “It’s still work, but I see a lot of the country that way.”

PHOTO: Wanaka App