It all started with an advertisement on eBay. It was for a white fish and chip van emblazoned with the cheerful slogan 'Chippy Chappy'. When Kristian Pontone spotted it he wasted no time approaching the seller and settling the transaction. By that evening he was driving the 100-mile journey from Cardiff to Exeter – with his partner, Jodi Dickens, their young daughter and newborn son in tow – to pick up the keys.
That was six years ago. Looking back now Kristian considers the vehicle – and the "crazy" spontaneous trip to bring it home – a godsend. "I think sometimes you're guided without knowing it. But I feel like, as Italians, we're quite spiritual and superstitious as well," the 39-year-old laughs. "It just really feels like we were guided to do that because six years down the road we're sat here in the shop now. We have all this from a moment of saying: 'I'm going to give something else a go.'"
I'm sitting with Kristian in his and Jodi's pizzeria, Modo Pizza Romana, which opened six months ago in Whitchurch Road in Cardiff. Morning sunlight streams through the front windows and glints off the white-tiled counter. A comforting smell of dough fills the small space. With some imagination we could convince ourselves that we're lounging on a veranda in Italy – that the thrum of the busy road outside is actually the sound of Vespas and the Roman tramway.
