A Family Table,an Italian Heart
Some love stories begin in Paris. Ours began in Lake Toxaway. Shauna spotted him first — a chef with a ponytail and suspenders working the kitchen at a little mountain restaurant. She thought it might be a summer fling. Thirty-something years later, they're still cooking together.
Horacio grew up between Peru and Switzerland, shaped by a father from the Ligurian coast of Italy — a region famous for its bold flavors and uncompromising standards. He brought all of that with him when he and Shauna opened their first restaurant, Horatio's, in Cashiers, NC in 1994. Nearly twenty years later, Bocca Pure Italian was born in Greenville — and they haven't looked back since.
In 2011, Horacio walked into an old building on Poinsett Highway and saw something nobody else did. He gutted it, painted the walls, built the shelves. The wine bottles came later — when they could finally afford to fill them. Now those shelves are full, the candles are always lit, and Roman, Giovani, and Giuliano — their three sons — work alongside their parents every single night.
Bocca means mouth in Italian. That's all this place has ever been about — feeding people. Really feeding them. Flavor. Quality. Wholesome. No fussy plating, no pretense. Just a table that always feels like home.
