When it comes to cooking, David Rocco could navigate his way through a kitchen blindfolded and still create a mouthwatering meal.

But if his car were to break down, the charismatic host of the popular food show, David Rocco’s La Dolce Vita, wouldn’t be as adept at fixing it.

“I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to cars,” he confesses. “I only know how to put in gas.”
In fact, while filming the first season of his eponymous show in Italy a few years ago, his vehicle of choice was a golf cart.

“It was really trendy in Florence about seven years ago to drive golf carts,” says the handsome Italian-Canadian.

“I’m telling you, it’s the best ride. The centre of Rome and Florence are usually blocked off to motor vehicles, but if it’s an electric vehicle, they let you in. So I was pimping my golf cart.”

Although he traded in the golf cart for a Smart Car last year while back in Italy filming season four of his show, at home in Toronto, he and his wife Nina own two Mercedes.

One is a 1989 560 silver convertible that Nina inherited from her family, and which the couple seldom drive, but are keeping for their daughters when they turn 16 (“they’ll thank us for it,” he says); and the other is a 2008 Mercedes 320 ML, which the couple bought last year after having the twins. “We love the fact that the ML is diesel,” he says.

Rocco, who’s first cookbook, bearing the same title as his show, came out last fall to huge success, also owns two Vespas, which he hasn’t driven much since the arrival of twin daughters, Emma and Giorgia, 18 months ago.

Not only has fatherhood tempered what he says was his previously aggressive  driving, but he doesn’t have much free time for jaunts on the Vespas.

Currently in the midst of writing his second cookbook, Rocco will head back to Italy in November, to prepare for season five of La Dolce Vita, which was recently sold internationally on National Geographic. It seems that David Rocco is truly living la dolce vita.

You can catch the fourth season of David Rocco’s La Dolce Vita each Monday at 7 p.m. on the Food Network Canada.  

– Heather Buchan is a Toronto-based journalist who has worked at several magazines,
including Hello! Canada, where she cut her teeth in the world of celebrities.