For Lewis Hamilton, Italy isn’t just a stop on the racing calendar. It’s a feeling. A rhythm. A way of living and eating.
Sitting around a table with longtime friends, the conversation naturally drifts back to Italy, not as a destination, but as an experience shaped by gestures, food and people who put their whole selves into everything they do.
The Italian way of being
One of the first things Lewis points out is something unmistakably Italian: expressiveness. Gestures aren’t just decorative, he explains. They’re truly a language. Italians speak with their hands as much as with words, using movement to give emotion weight and meaning.
He recalls an Italian friend once gifting him an actual book of hand gestures collected, defined and codified. Proof that, in Italy, expression isn’t accidental. It’s cultural.
For Lewis, that openness, that physical and unfiltered way of communicating, is something the rest of the world could embrace a little more.
It’s not about volume or drama. It’s about presence.
Learning to eat in Italy
But it’s food that anchors Lewis’s deepest memories. They trace back to his early racing days, when he was just a teenager embedded in a local karting team.
What struck him wasn’t just the flavour; it was the care. Dishes prepared slowly, from scratch, rooted in family traditions passed down over time.
That sense of structure comes up again and again when he talks about Italian meals: antipasti, primi, secondi, dessert. Multiple courses, enjoyed without rushing, built around fresh ingredients. A system that celebrates pleasure, yet rarely tips into excess.
In fact, Lewis notes he can hardly remember seeing Italians overweight. The secret, in his eyes, isn’t restriction; it’s balance. Proper food, eaten properly.
