Remembering those we lost
The Bay Area food community lost a number of well-loved members in 2014. We’ll remember:
Donna Scala
Donna Scala, who died in March at the age of 60, was the rare chef who could (and would) wear pearls in the kitchen. After growing up in the restaurant world and training in France, Scala and her husband, Giovanni, founded the Bay Area’s Piatti Ristorante chain in 1987, followed by Scala’s Bistro in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in 1995. It was at the helm of Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa, however, that she made her biggest mark — both for her California-Italian food and her vivacious, welcoming personality.
Victor Gotti
Victor Gotti was a restaurateur who could claim celebrities as friends and a role in advancing San Francisco’s reputation as a dining town. In 1947, Victor and brother Roland took over Ernie’s from their father and transformed it into the city’s toniest restaurant. For several decades, Ernie’s, in North Beach, represented the peak of civilized San Francisco, with its opulent Victorian decor, French-inspired cuisine and huge wine cellar. Ernie’s closed in 1995 after a 61-year run; Gotti died in November at the age of 92.
Chris L’Hommedieu
San Francisco lost one of its best chefs when Chris L’Hommedieu died of cancer in July at the age of 44. His presence was felt more strongly in the kitchen than in the dining room: L’Hommedieu helped Michael Mina earn four stars at Mina’s first eponymous restaurant, helped Thomas Keller open Per Se in New York and most recently served as the chef de cuisine at Prospect.
Lorenzo Petroni
The definition of a self-made man, Lorenzo Petroni moved from Lucca, Italy, to San Francisco at the age of 19. After slowly working his way up the ranks, he opened North Beach Restaurant (with Bruno Orsi) in 1970 and Petroni Vineyards in 1992. For more than 40 years, Petroni ran the front of house at his Tuscan restaurant, turning it into one of San Francisco’s informal seats of power.
Bonnie Tempesta
Cafes all over the Bay Area still honor the legacy of Bonnie Tempesta. In 1982, she began following an aunt’s recipe to bake biscotti, incorporating her business as La Tempesta Bakery a year later. In the years she ran La Tempesta before selling the company in 1997, the bakery introduced America to both plain and chocolate-dipped biscotti, the latter her own invention. Tempesta returned to the biscotti business in 2012 with Boncora, based in Sonoma; she died of cancer at the age of 61 in September.