'Moonstruck,' Played out in Collingswood
Reunited nearly 15 years ago, it's been a creative adventure for the star-crossed couple behind Sapori and The Artemisian.
It’s not easy to parlay a transatlantic romance into two successful businesses, three kids and a 13-year marriage—especially when your future wife doesn't know you're waiting, an ocean away. Back then, Franco Lombardo was sweating it out in the kitchen of La Locanda del Ghiottone, a well-reviewed South Philadelphia trattoria. A year had gone by since his brief romance with Marisa, who had come to Philadelphia from the University of Rome, and returned just as quickly. She might not have looked back, but he had never stopped thinking about her. Then one day, a year later, she came walking up 3rd Street. Where he lived and worked. Where she'd just rented an apartment from which to finish out her studies. “I had no intention of staying," she …
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John V. R. Bull
1:05 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
That's a charming love story, Franco. It's hard to believe that Marisa has put up with you all these years! Well, miracles do happen, I guess. And it's miraculous what happens in your kitchen which always turns out superb cuisine. So miracles abound at Sapori, it seems. But I always knew that anyway! MANY congratulations. John V. R. Bull Philadelphia more ›