The main sign heralding Bellissimo restaurant in Buchel promises, in red and green lettering, “authentic Italian cuisine.”
A smaller sandwich board propped up near the parking lot extends the options.
“We offer the first Afghani cuisine in Louisville.”
True to their word, customers get two menus. One with pesto, pasta and cannoli, the other with kebabs, mantu and bolani.
In the restaurant’s kitchen, Mahboba Rasoli is hard at work. Farah Bahdi, Mahboba’s daughter, says Bellissimo is a family run operation. She, her parents and four siblings make up the majority of the staff.
“Sometimes we have to take breaks,” Farah said. “It's so hard to work with family. You know, we also live with each other, and we come here and work together.”
Communication is paramount.
“After you understand each other, it’s a blessing. If you understand each other, you have the same goal, it's very, very easy and wonderful,” Abbas Jamshidi, Farah’s father and Bellissimo’s owner, said.
Abbas came to the United States after fleeing his home country of Iran during the student protests of 1999.
“Students from the college, they got beaten up by the government, and I hid one of these guys, and that was my reason I had to leave,” Abbas said.
When he got to Louisville, he pursued a career in jewelry and met his now wife.
He also waited tables at Vincenzo’s on the side for extra income. While he never worked in the kitchen, he fell under the tutelage of Chef Agostino Gabriele.
“I kept asking questions of Chef Agostino and he said, ‘Hey, you’ve had more questions last month than everybody here in the last year!’ [He told me] go do it at home, you’ll learn.’ And I did. And I loved it,” Abbas said.
Abbas’ son, Fawad Rasoli, said during this period his father was obsessed, watching Italian cooking shows and reading magazines on Italian cuisine. Fawad said the practice paid off.
“We tried it and would be like, ‘God, he's good,’” Fawad said.
Abbas started Bellissimo in 2017 as an Italian food truck, sensing a vacuum in the market.
“You see most of them (food trucks) have burgers or tacos. So we want to be very unique,” Abbas said.
Today, he runs both the truck and a brick and mortar location with the help of his family, but he still works in jewelry too.
“Jewelry you see with the eyes, and you fall in love with your heart,” Abbas said. “Food is the same thing. You're looking with your eyes, and enjoy with your belly. So both of them have the eye as a gate.”
The all-Italian cuisine evolved over the years. Mahboba wanted to add food from her home country of Afghanistan. Their clientele loved the additional choices. What started as a weekends-only option is now a permanent part of the menu.
While the business was moving along, the family suffered two personal blows that forced them to close the restaurant for almost a year.
One of Abbas and Mahboba’s daughters, who was diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, had to be put on dialysis. Then their son Farad died last summer after suffering a seizure.
“People say that life is beautiful, and it is. But it's [also] very hard,” Abbas said.
The family said that, in many ways, Farad was the backbone of Bellissimo and a large reason why the restaurant is so successful today.
A small altar in his memory sits behind Belissimo’s front counter.
“His quick wits, his social skills, his passion, his big heart, is the reason why the food truck survived,” Fawad, Farad’s twin brother, said.
Long before Bellissimo, the brothers spent their young adulthood working together in restaurants. Fawad said they would often push their parents beyond their comfort zones.
Farad was not above a bit of trickery to get their parents to take the food truck to special events, like festivals.
“Sometimes telling them a lie, saying they'll give us $5,000 if you go, or $1,000 or something. Just to get them to go,” Fawad said of his brother.
The loss has been hard on the family, but it's also brought them closer together. The family now all lives together under one roof.
“It's sad that sometimes a tragic thing like that have to happen for a family to finally realize that you know life is short and is really unexpected, so you should always make every day count and don’t take even a second for granted,” Fawad said.
Fawad wants to follow in his parent’s footsteps and either take over Bellissimo or open his own restaurant.
“I’m always going to need my mom's help on cooking, you know, or my dad's help, but I want to maybe make them proud and let them know your son can manage the business by himself.”
For now, Fawad will stick with Bellissimo and his family.
They’re talking about expanding the restaurant, something he and his twin dreamed about doing together.
“I’m glad that Bellissimo was my brother's dream and that he got to see before he left.”
