[Rhodes22-list] Italian Food

Thu Jun 1 08:18:38 EDT 2006

This is a great story.  Collierville is where we live
and I can't wait to eat at this resturant.  Brad

 commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN 

Devastated by Katrina, Pasta Italia owner went to work
By Tom Bailey Jr.
Contact
June 1, 2006

Two days after Katrina, restaurateur Michele D'Oto
drove 145 miles from the Alabama hotel where he and
his family took refuge back to D'Iberville, Miss., to
check on his home and restaurant. 

Over five years, he had built up Pasta Italia from an
isolated market of Italian food products with two
tables to a popular destination restaurant with 18
tables. 

What he saw caused the 42-year-old native of northern
Italy to turn his Jeep Cherokee around without
stopping. 

The hurricane swept away his home and restaurant. 

D'Oto got back to his wife, Suzanne, and two
daughters, Alexandra, 14, and Elizabeth, 10. 

"I talked to them straight," he recalled in his
charming Italian accent. "It's time to go. ... We put
our heads down and started over." 

They drove to Collierville to crowd into the home of
Suzanne's brother. 

FEMA helped the D'Otos, but their insurance paid
nothing on the restaurant and only settled the debt on
their home. 

His survivor-mode drive and the help of strangers has
put the family back in business. 

At 9:15 one morning last week , the kitchen hummed
with work inside the new little Italian restaurant on
Collierville's Town Square. 

Pasta Italia opened April 15 at 101 N. Center. 

The stove's vent fan whirred over a pot of simmering
water. 

At a long, narrow table covered with aluminum foil,
Michele (pronounced ME kell A) rolled the gnocchi
dough (potato, flour, parmesan cheese and nutmeg) into
strand after strand. 

The owner and chef chopped them into hundreds of
inchlong bits and stuck fork tines in them so they
would soak in the sauce. 

"Hey, Suzy, can you make tables 11 and five?" D'Oto
asked his wife. 

"Hey, Ryan, why don't you start to do the bread?" he
called out. 

Kitchen worker Ryan Talarico shifted to the bread
dough, leaving the other helper, John Greenway, to
work on the crab ravioli by himself. 

D'Oto is from Modena, and he makes his northern Italy
cuisine from scratch with imported ingredients. 

It was 75 minutes into another long day for D'Oto, and
he loves every hour of it. 

To hear him, he's riding atop a wave of miracles and
kindnesses shown by others. 

What started as calamity has turned into a rebirth. 

"It's been the most beautiful experience of my life,"
D'Oto says quietly. 

Self-pity is not on his menu. 

The soft-spoken D'Oto and Suzanne recount what has
happened since September in a tale filled with grace. 

Like the First Assembly Christian School in Cordova
embracing their daughters within a week of their
arrival, giving them a break on tuition and throwing a
shower that re-supplied the girls with things they
need. 

Like quickly landing a job as general manager of
another new Italian restaurant in Collierville, Fino
Villa. 

Like spotting the "For Rent" sign at the vacant Town
Square building and experiencing a godsend of a
landlord. 

John Ashworth not only offered D'Oto several months of
free rent, but helped refurbish the interior for the
restaurant. 

Why? 

"I pretty much sensed he knew what he was doing," said
Ashworth, whose wife Patricia owns Patricia's, an
antique shop also on the square. 

"The 'ol boy had some bad luck down there. He lost his
business, his home, everything." 

Something else impressed Ashworth: D'Oto works 16-hour
days. 

"I used to do that for years," Ashworth said. 

D'Oto trained in Italy for the restaurant and hotel
business. He had a passion for two things, languages
and cooking. 

He's lived in France, Switzerland, Spain, Lebanon and
England. 

He met Suzanne, a Hattiesburg, Miss., native, while
working as a wine buyer for a cruise line in the
Caribbean. 

They've been married 17 years. 

Pasta Italia is a beautiful, small space, with room
for 10 tables. 

Intimate enough for the personable D'Oto to greet
every customer. "If he had to do mass production, I'm
sure he wouldn't do it," Suzanne said. 

Rich, amber hues bathe the dining room in this
109-year-old building that last housed Dinstuhl's. (It
started as Thomson's Saloon and was the first home of
People's Bank, according to Main Street Collierville.)

And the food? 

"Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh," Collierville resident
Kathie Holder said last week a few hours after having
her first meal at Pasta Italia. 

"I"m a foodie. I was so impressed with this meal
today. Best Italian meal I ever had." 

-- Tom Bailey Jr: 529-2388

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