I pick up the plates and walk into the cool whitewashed restaurant, where the tables are set with red and white checked cloths and the lights are low. On the walls I see photographs of Nonno and his father before him, holding the pizza peel, the flat paddle, standing in the courtyard in front of the old forno, long since retired.

I push open the swing door, between the tables and the high, dark-wood bar, with my backside as I loved to do as a child, and walk into the kitchen. Immediately I can feel the heat of the wood-fired oven, the embers glowing in its big pot belly. And I can see the meat he has put in, so as not to waste the heat overnight. A piece of porchetta, slow-cooked pork, clearly for a special pizza tomorrow. The smell of the crisping skin, the garlic and rosemary remind me of Sundays when we weren’t at the olive grove. Sunday lunch, with slow-cooked pork like this. Sundays were always a family time whether in Italy or at home in Wales.

I wash up the plates and clear up the kitchen, turning off the lights. As I return to the terrace, the customers are wishing Nonno goodnight and thanking him for a wonderful meal as always. Nonno walks them from the terrace, across the courtyard to the gates and sees them out, waves, then pulls the bolt across the gates.

‘Right, we should get you home,’ I say. ‘Nonna is worrying about you. You mustn’t do too much too soon.’

‘I know, I know. Now, siedeti. Sit!’ He walks back under the pergola and returns to the terrace, pointing towards the table where the candles are burning low and the empty glasses are still sitting there. ‘Let me enjoy some time with my granddaughter.’ He goes inside the dark restaurant and returns with two clean glasses and a bottle of grappa. ‘Here,’ he says, pouring a glass for me and one for him. Then he raises his to toast me.

‘Now, could you manage some gelato? You could always manage some gelato. I have a new flavour I want you to try.’

‘A new flavour?’

He nods. ‘You see? Some things do change around here,’ he says, laughs and coughs.

‘Perhaps tomorrow, Nonno.’ I take a sip of the burning clear liquid, my eyes smarting as it goes down. We sit in silence with our thoughts, listening to young people in the piazza.

‘So, tomorrow’s special? Porchetta?’

‘Hmmm.’ He nods. ‘With mushrooms.’

‘Pork and mushrooms. Wild mushrooms cooked in white wine to give them a bit of zing, and fontina-style cheese?’ I think about the semi-soft, nutty cow’s milk cheese, that originally came from the Alps, but Nonno has a friend who makes something similar locally. Everything at Nonno’s restaurant is produced locally.

He nods again and smiles widely.