A new Lizzy Dent rom-com is always a reason to celebrate, in my opinion. And her newest one is a fun romp into the culinary world of Italy. It's armchair travel at its finest to the sunny coast of Italy, and you will crave a big, delicious bowl of pasta. The story centers around Olive, who is still mourning the loss of her father, Nicky. Nicky is a famous chef and has left his London restaurant to her and the task of finishing his cookbook. Alongside his handsome (of course) sous chef, Leo, the two travel to Italy to finish the cookbook. This one has a ton of Dent's signature humor and witty banter. It's also a touching exploration of a complicated father/daughter relationship, much like Funny Story. This one is a lot of fun if you're looking for a really solid romance to round out your summer!

Just One Taste is my second novel by Lizzy Dent after reading The Sweetest Revenge. I had some mixed feelings on that story and I some similar ones with this novel. This story follows food critic Olive Stone who had a falling out fourteen years ago with her Italian pseudo-celebrity chef father and owner of the restaurant “Nicky’s.” When he passed away, he ended up willing the restaurant to his sous chef turned surrogate son, Leo Ricci. His dying wish was also to have Olive and Leo work together on a tour of Italy to complete his cookbook. Even though Olive and Leo do not get along, both want to fulfil his wish. Olive wants to sell the restaurant while Leo wants to keep it and the two of them now must spend lots of time together as they travel from Sicily to Tuscany to Liguria.

There is a romance that develops between Olive and Leo and appreciate that the author made it a slow burn. I still needed more exploration to feel a connection to it, but I did enjoy the progress of events. On the other hand, the friendships in the novel were well-written. The relationship between Olive and her father is also well-described as there is a lot to work through. The other part that is nicely written are the descriptions of food. Together the novel was a good read, but it just needed a little more, so the romance did not feel secondary. As the romance was written as a slow burn, I expected a little more tension into the will they-won’t they. Since this is a romance story, the reader does know that the characters will get together, but the tension between them is what makes it enjoyable, at least for me. Overall, this was a nice novel by Dent and I look forward to trying her next read.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, for the opportunity to read this entertaining novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

Thank you G.P. Putnam's Sons (Penguin Group) for sharing this ARC with me.

Olive is the estranged daughter of a restaurant/owner chef who recently died and left her his restaurant in his will. Leo is the restaurant's chef who was co-writing a cookbook with Olive's father before he died. Olive and Leo travel together to Italy to finish the cookbook. "Just One Taste" is a lovely journey of Italy, food, self-discovery, and falling in love.

I really wanted to love this one. I've enjoyed the other novels written by the author. This one fell flat to me. I didn't enjoy the main characters. I never felt connected to them or wanted them to succeed.

When Olive’s estranged father dies, she is surprise that he leaves her his restaurant. Surprised because the restaurant is what caused her parent’s divorce. Olive immediately wants to sell, but the sous chef, Leo, convinces her to wait until they come back from Italy. Another caveat from her father’s will, she has to help Leo finish the book they working on. So Olive and Leo embark on a trip through the Italian countryside, meeting up with relatives and old friends, and eating and cooking a lot of Italian food. It’s no wonder they end up falling for each other.

Do Not Read This Book If You’re Hungry!!

This was a cute read. Olive and Leo are attracted to each other right away. She’s afraid to start anything because she may be selling the restaurant. And if she does keep it, she’s afraid their relationship would be ruined like her parents was. Leo is pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. He loves the restaurant, but he’s been wanting to update if for years. He’s got a lot of ideas, but if Olive decides to sell, he’ll basically go with the flow and try his ideas somewhere else. He’s perfect to help Olive’s high-strung personality.

I want to start by thanking the author and publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book. It was a cute book reminded me of a hallmark movie I watched recently.

I really enjoyed this story. I loved following our main characters through Italy, through the food and the scenery. The writing was well done; thought I've never been to Italy I felt like I was experiencing it along with them.

This was a fun romcom with lots of food, some discussion of grief, and a cute love story. I personally didn’t love it, due to the fact that Olive was stubborn and largely insufferable for the first third of the book, and I struggled to fully and deeply fall into investment with the romance between her and Leo. But there were some great elements to the evolution of her character, the story of her relationship with her father developed in some nuanced ways, and while I think those pieces could have been inspected and elaborated upon even deeper, I enjoyed the story. Overall, I give this book 3.25⭐, rounded to 3 on Goodreads!

*Thank you again to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Thank you to Penguin Books and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

On paper, this book is made for me. Food writing and explorations of grief? Sign me up! But the beginning is all exposition, and sets up what seems to be hundreds of romance cliches in one big dump. I knew exactly what was going to happen in the book and it didn’t seem worth reading at that point. I had to DNF.

London

Olive Stone is a food journalist for The London Times. For some years now, she has been estranged from her father after he and her mother divorced. Now, the man has died and Olive learns that he has left his beloved Italian restaurant, Nicky’s, to her. As a child she spent many days at the restaurant where both her father and mother shared duties. Her father had been in the middle of writing a cookbook and has requested that along with the restaurant’s long-time head chef, Leo Ricci, they finish it. Every summer, the family would spend four weeks in Italy eating delicious food and discovering new recipes to use in the restaurant. It seems that the trip for Olive and Leo has been planned and paid for. Now here’s the problem. Olive feels the restaurant may not be doing as well as it should and she wants to sell it. Leo is appalled and begs her to just take the trip and finish the cookbook and, hopefully, she will change her mind and keep the restaurant. So, she agrees.

As Leo and Olive spend time in different areas of Italy, they taste lots of dishes and come up with three different recipes for each of the three areas they visit. They meet up with an old friend of Olive’s father; Leo’s aunt; and

Spending time together and sharing food and wine brings the two of them together as they get to know one another. This soon leads to an attraction that cannot be denied. As Olive becomes more involved with recipes, she wonders if she can really sell her father’s restaurant.

This book was enjoyable especially in the descriptions of the food. I found Olive’s girlfriends and confidents to be clever and fun. I really liked Leo but did not care for Olive at all. She always seems to have to be the boss and have the last word. But an enjoyable story.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for the E-Arc. I am not stranger to books by Lizzy Dent so it is no surprise that her books are very much about the FMC finding her way and her strength at least that is how I interpret it and this one was no different. Olive embarks on this journey to finish her fathers cookbook with her fathers protege Leo. The places they went the food ahhh it was like you were there. This book had it all the feels laughs with the Olive and her besties, the chemistry with Leo, but most importantly Olive finding herself in the world of her father and coming to terms with her grief. Once again Lizzy Dent did not disappoint.

3.75 ⭐️

Just One Taste is a fast-paced cute read that follows Olive and Leo as they travel through Italy in order to complete a cookbook. This is not just your average cute romance, both of the characters in this story are also dealing with grief as they mourn someone very important to them. My only "complaint" is that this book made me ridiculously hungry! I would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed "The Seven Year Slip", minus the magical realism I feel that the writing style, grief, and love of food is very similar.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me the chance to read the ARC of Just One Taste.

(Review posted to My Goodreads Account)

I read this in one day because I couldn't put it down. I absolutely loved this book. I like Lizzy Dents writing and her banter between characters is amazing. I loved this story line. On top of the family drama the food she talks about is mouth watering. I loved it!

This was a whimsical summer read with a backdrop of Italy and some mouth watering food. I love an enemy to lovers type vibe, it just took me a little bit to actually get into this book

This one has a great Italian setting and lots of Italian food references, but the story just didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t really into the romance between Olive and Leo e or the little unexpected twist in this one.

Pick it up for a foodie romance.

There was something off, uncomfortable and awkward about this book. I’m not sure if it was Olive’s attitude or acting like a petulant child or if it was the strange Italy plot. It just didn’t work for me for some reason. The author spends a lot of time on build up with no peak.

Just when I thought I couldn't possibly want to visit Italy anymore than I already do, here comes Lizzy Dent with Just One Taste, which is basically a romantic romp throughout the country.

Olive Stone has been estranged from her father, Nicky, an Italian chef and restaurateur for fourteen years. So no one is more surprised than she is when her father dies and leaves her his London restaurant. He also wants her to finish writing his cookbook about Italian food, with the help of his sous-chef and surrogate son, Leo. This means Olive and Leo will have to travel to Italy together and somehow agree not only on recipes, but also on whether or not Olive should sell the restaurant. She intends to sell, and Leo intends to change her mind. Under the Tuscan sun, just how persuasive can Leo be?

This is going to sound strange, but I think I would have enjoyed Just One Taste more if it was a different genre, not a romance. This book is strongest when it delves into Olive's complicated relationship with her father and how she navigates the grieving process when so much between them was left unresolved. And it reads like a love letter to Italian food, with mouth-watering descriptions of Sicilian, Tuscan, and Ligurian dishes. So much of Olive's feelings about her father are tied up in food -- the things he cooked for her, what it was like to grow up in his restaurant, and the way she ultimately believed that he chose the restaurant over her -- and the way all of that unfolds in the narrative is emotionally resonant and poignant.

Because of this, though, the romance feels secondary and not nearly as interesting. It never felt to me like a slow-burn "enemies to lovers" trope, as Olive and Leo were mostly civil to each other from the beginning. There was no real romantic tension, there was never a question as to "will they or won't they" because it was very clear that they would -- and yet I never really felt like they had much chemistry.

Alas, unlike the Italian food described in this book, the romance was quite bland. There was no unexpected ingredient to spice things up, and that affected my overall reading experience. Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons for the early reading opportunity.

3.5*

I’d give this 4*, but it didn’t capture my attention at first and I didn’t agree with Olive’s decision to sell her late father Nicky’s London restaurant or the abrupt way she shared it with Leo, the sous chef who was like a son to Nicky. As I read further, Olive’s thoughts about the restaurant, which she inherited when he died suddenly, began to shift, and I started warming up to the story. Amidst the stunning regions of Italy that Olive and Leo visited as inspiration to finish her father’s cookbook (Catania, Tuscany, and Liguria), the feelings between them began to grow. It was refreshing to read a love story between two kind and caring people that didn’t come with a heaping pile of angst or a mess due to miscommunication. Leo definitely had ideas about how to fix the dated restaurant and tired menu, and when Olive was receptive to hearing them, he shared, but he never put any pressure on her to decide to keep the restaurant if it wasn’t what was best for her. As his aunt said, he takes care of the people he loves and, unlike her father who put the restaurant before his family, Olive began to trust that Leo wouldn’t repeat her father’s mistakes.

In summary, this slow burn romance is a foodie’s dream and a love letter to the sights, tastes and smells of Italy. It might not be a book that keeps you up all night reading, but like a leisurely meal under the Tuscan sun, it’ll leave you feeling satiated and satisfied that all is right in Olive and Leo’s world. Recommended.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Lizzy's books take me on a foodie adventure, and I just love it. This is a heartfelt journey of finding love, enduring loss, and grappling with big life changes while appreciating the beauty and amazing food that Italy has to offer. I seriously need a trip to Italy, stat!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This story had me salivating and wanting to devour plates of pasta! Overall, it was a story about food critic Olive's estranged chef father leaving her his restaurant Nicky's when he unexpectedly passed. The culinary aspect of Olive and her father's sous chef Leo adventures through Italy to complete her father's cookbook really came alive on the page. Their slow burn romance was a tension bubble and once it burst, it kinda fell flat in that department.