Soyara and Sonia are sisters (hence ‘Sorella’ meaning ‘sisters’ in Italian) from Brazil, raised by an Italian mother and a Korean father. Their mother taught them how to cook and their father, a minister, taught them how to pray. They came to the United States in 1981 with their father, who was accepted at the seminary in San Anselmo to work on his doctorate.

Being young and ambitious, Sonia and Soyara worked in the restaurant business. They worked together in catering companies and restaurants, picking up cooking methods and recipes along the way.”we moved to Fairfax when my husband John and I bought a house a few years ago, explains Soyara with her omnipresent grin. “It even has a separate cottage on the property, in which Sonia lives.

“We fell in love with Fairfax, especially because we can walk to downtown in a few minutes. We noticed that this building was unoccupied and began to hatch a dream of opening a restaurant. After talking about it for a couple of months, we decided to research the feasibility of opening our own restaurant. The owner was very cooperative and we discovered that we could make our dream a reality!. That was only a few months ago, so here we are ten years later” Soyara says, flashing her characteristic smile.