While most 11-year-olds are eating school lunches packed by their parents, New York City-based Luca Marconi is busy dining on grilled octopus, hanging out with notable chefs, and taking videos of burrata-topped pizza on an iPhone X for his 15,000-odd Instagram followers.
Cue intense feelings of inadequacy; are 11-year-olds even allowed to have Instagram?
Marconi is the big personality behind @lucatwotimes, an account he’s grown over the past 12 months as a kind of food blog. He hops around to different restaurants in New York City with family friend and videographer, Sabino Curcio, trying and reviewing (with gusto) the kinds of food some people don’t eat until well into adulthood.
At Aunt Jake’s, a handmade pasta joint in Little Italy, Luca shows down on a crispy, chewy piece of calamari:
And, because ice cream is an important part of every 11-year-old’s life (read: everyone’s life), he hits up Odd Fellows Ice Cream Co. for some scoops of peanut butter and jelly gelato.
What a life!
Luca’s parents both play big roles in his burgeoning food career. His mother Lucia, a New Yorker with Italian heritage, often cooks at home (“he eats everything,” she tells the New York Post). His dad, Michele, is a pastry chef from Teggiano, Italy. Curcio, another influential adult in Luca’s lifee, runs Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe in Brooklyn, where Luca was encouraged to film his first review.
He’s a cute, little Italian boy who loves food.
Like other Insta-famous youth (who could forget Pengest Munch, the Chicken Connoisseur), Luca has serious bombast, and is a natural-born performer. But his obvious love of food makes the reviews a joy to watch. In the realm of heavily curated social media presences, the LucaTwoTimes Instagram account is a refreshing change. He’s probably going to be really famous one day.
“People like him so much because he’s so natural and funny about it,” Lucia tells the New York Post. “He’s a cute, little Italian boy who loves food.”
The kids are alright.
Lead image via Instagram: @lucatwotimes.
