When Francesca Pizzi lamented the dearth of Italian restaurants in downtown Indy, her father, restaurateur Gino Pizzi, offered her some sage advice: “Why don’t you open one yourself?” As is so often true, father knows best. While Francesca has no formal culinary training, she grew up doing homework and taking naps inside her family’s beloved Broad Ripple standard, Ambrosia.

Later, Pizzi helped her grandfather stuff tortellini and prepare many of the other Italian-American classics on the menu. She moved to Nashville for a few years to work corporate jobs, but she eventually came back. “I realized the restaurant business was in my blood,” she says.