A Sensory Journey: Destination Antelao

By Patrick and Mary Dorian (May 2004)

Chef Michael De Lotto started working in kitchens when he was thirteen and has never left. Elvi De Lotto joined in early in the game, first by supporting Mike's years at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA , class of 1982), then by developing her own skills as a baker, gardener, and businesswoman.

Today Mike and Elvi own Antelao, a small, exquisite restaurant in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania . The couple has followed a traditional road to success. Modesty, passion, and hard work have earned them rave reviews in the Philadelphia Inquirer (an extensive article entitled “Water Gap Wonder” including a photo of Chef De Lotto at work in the kitchen), the Newark Star-Ledger, and the Allentown Morning Call, as well as from their devoted restaurant customers. Antelao is included in the second edition of the prestigious Chef's Collaborative restaurant guide of partners in local, artisanal, and sustainable cuisine, in respectable company with the Union Square Café in New York City , Chez Panisse in Berkeley , California , and the Zuni Café in San Francisco . The restaurant is becoming known as a required destination for all who appreciate life's sensory experiences.

Chef De Lotto traces his culinary roots back to his native area of Yonkers , New York , where, starting in the early 1970s, he worked in Italian restaurants for five years as a busperson and waiter. After graduating from high school in 1976, he traveled around the country for several months until arriving in Monterey , California , where he says, “The area was so beautiful, I went and got a job on Cannery Row at a place called the Spaghetti Warehouse.” His baptism by fire came at a Monterey-area inn when the entire cooking staff exited in protest over conflicts with the owner, leaving Mike as chef-in-charge. Fortunately, his years of careful kitchen observation compensated for his lack of confidence, as waiters teamed up with him on the menu details.

Next he was invited to join the staff at the Hyatt Del Monte in Monterey , where many of the inn's cooking crew had ended up. Elvi was waitressing at the Hyatt when Mike began as a night porter. He learned the ins and outs of cooking equipment and maintenance, recalling, “I went in at midnight, took the kitchen apart, cleaned everything, then put it back together in time for the kitchen workers to come in and start using it at five or six o'clock in the morning. That's all I did was clean.” Michael eventually would build his own kitchen backed by the knowledge gained from these nightly duties.

De Lotto then moved to the Hyatt's day crew, meeting Chef Richard Maglietto, who, as busy as he was with upward of $1 million each month in banquet sales, budgeting, purchasing, and overseeing forty chefs, became a mentor; he recognized that Mike had potential. Mike also worked with expert ice carver Kevin Tole. But his moment of cuisinal epiphany came when he worked with Chef Richard, catering the famous Crosby golf tournament (now called the AT&T at Pebble Beach Tournament). Chef Richard's pastilage artwork--chocolate painted portraits of the golfers and celebrities at that year's event--was lined up on a table. Mike had no idea that all of this beauty was executed from sugar, thinking that only paints in the hands of an artist could create such striking work. After Chef Richard explained the process, Michael said with conviction, “WOW! This is what I want to do.” He was struck by the chef's ability to make food much more than just something of sustenance: “Chef Richard spent weeks on something that people were only going to look at while they went through the buffet line. I was impressed with the amount of effort that went into making it appealing from a visual standpoint.” The experienced artist told Mike, “You have to go to school if you really want to do this. You need an education.”

Michael remembers, “Yes, it was a good place to be. The people in Monterey were like a second family to me. They cared more about what happened to me than anywhere I ever experienced. I have so many good memories. People who had only known me for a few months were helping me. That kind of guidance you don't get in Yonkers , New York . I was a young person on my own, and the people who I was working with saw that and wanted to point me in the right direction, and it helped me tremendously.” An apprentice program for pastry at the City College of San Francisco further convinced Mike that he was on the right path.

Chef Richard wrote a recommendation letter for Michael that would accompany his application for admission to the CIA . There were also a few graduates of the institute employed at the Hyatt, and they counseled Mike about the CIA 's interview process. Interestingly, those people are still employed at the Hyatt almost thirty years later. (In 1978, the CIA was one of the only accredited programs for the study of the culinary arts in the United States . Today there are well over eight hundred programs, with the CIA remaining one of the most reputable.)

Elvi graduated high school in 1978 and the young couple moved to Mike's native area north of New York City to the village of Tarrytown . Mike applied to the CIA and, like all applicants, was put on a two-year waiting list for admission. With no specific focus of study, he just had his vision to learn everything he could about the food industry. He worked at a local Holiday Inn and a Hilton Hotel while waiting for notification, saving almost all income for the first semester at the CIA . There was no financial aid available for incoming students at that time, but Michael knew that if his first-semester grades were excellent, he could then go to a bank to apply for loans. Elvi's main interest in veterinary medicine was pursued with her work on horse farms as well as in a hotel kitchen. The plan was for Michael to graduate from the CIA , then it would be her turn for academia.

Once Mike's CIA classes finally began, he rode the train from Tarrytown to Poughkeepsie and back again, observing with great interest various people of the night. He hid an old bicycle in the bushes near the Poughkeepsie station, which he would ride several miles north to the CIA in Hyde Park . It was a difficult time for the De Lottos because of the long work hours. Michael wasn't a typical student in that he couldn't call mom or dad and say that he needed something or that he was having a hard time with this or that. Michael remembers believing, “It was more like a mission, like ‘You need to graduate. You need to do this.' ” Courses that were not cooking oriented--for example, Menu & Facilities Planning, Wines & Spirits, and Cost Control--were pretty dry, but Michael knew that he needed them to get the whole experience.

Even today Mike speaks enthusiastically about the Menus & Facilities Planning course as the singular course that taught the keys to business success: “I was drinking it up! I loved it! I was never good at math because it was very dry and it was numbers, but here were numbers that meant something. Here was mathematics as it applied to what you do, and it was exciting and I liked it! As a matter of fact, that was the most difficult course in the whole curriculum, and I received an A in it, and it was my most successful course.”

His experiences with the faculty left a lasting impression. The instructor of one class would be a classically trained French master chef. Three weeks later, Mike was sitting in class listening to a German chef. Having grown up near New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, Michael would walk through many neighborhoods, hearing people speak different languages and observing their unique cultures, remembering, “I can't honestly say that I appreciated it back then, but I do now. It was of major importance at the CIA because I got instruction from people who were educated.” In the early 1980s, Michael studied under baking instructors who had done their apprenticeship in the Hitler youth corps! He experienced that perspective. If students wanted to discuss history with these teachers, they would hear it firsthand! “You had so many people with a lot of depth,” Michael explains with appreciation.

After receiving mostly A's for his first semester, Mike was able to procure significant bank loans for the rest of his time at the CIA . Elvi says that she and Mike hardly saw each other: “When he was going to school, that was his job, and on the weekends, he worked straight through. I would work a day shift and then a night shift, so we saw each other from 1:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the morning, when I left for work, and that was it.” Some of their best memories are of evenings after Mike attended Wine & Spirits Class, as he would always come home with a different bottle of wine. He remembers: “The wine course was interesting because I was learning how to read the labels on the bottles. I was learning how to taste the wine, and I always made sure that I'd bring home a different bottle.” Elvi concurs: “And that was a major luxury for us, because I always handled the money. I would always put money away for us. We would have $13 a week to live on . . . that was it! That included gas, food, anything. Michael ate at the CIA .”

As soon as Michael graduated in 1982, he and Elvi returned to California so that Elvi could enter veterinary technician school, paying $3 per credit with her resident status. With his degree from the CIA in hand, Michael was able to return to the Hyatt Del Monte in Monterey as the Chef Tournant and banquet chef, which included organizing twenty-five to thirty cooks and preparing dinners for fifteen hundred people while he also worked another part-time job! The year 1982 was a very good one, as it was the first year of the Monterey Food & Wine Culinary Salon competition. Chef De Lotto won the Silver Medal for Pastry that year. Ferdinand Metz, who at that time was president of the CIA , was one of three certified judges. At the end of the competition, when the medals were on the winning tables, the awardees went around with the judges to hear the critiques. Michael had constructed a sailing ship out of nougat (a form of sugar), which was on rock sugar. There was also marzipan and there was blown sugar, all involved in the complicated aspects of Mike's artistic presentations. Mr. Metz's critique emphasized details in terms of how things are cut, how things are laid out, and how they appear: “You need to pay attention to details. Details are very important.” Michael took Chef Metz's critique to heart.

In February 1984, the Hyatt Del Monte in Monterey chose Michael from more than five hundred employees as employee of the year. He was offered a two-week vacation in Hawaii or $1,000, and he and Elvi decided to accept the money to pay off part of Michael's school loan. Elvi remembers that decision humorously as being “stupid.” In the early 1980s, Elvi was enrolled in the Vet Tech program at Hartnell College in Salinas, California, while waitressing at two places and working as a vet tech. She excelled in this two-year program as Mike proudly states, “She was on the President's List and she had a 3.9 grade-point average!”

It was easy to appreciate food on the West Coast, especially in Monterey , with its fresh-food mindset. There was fresh produce and there was the wharf in Monterey where consumers could see the fresh seafood. Elvi remembers: “We would never say, ‘Oh, McDonald's, we'll eat that today.' We really ate seasonally there, all the produce and everything. Even just being in the supermarket, the food really gets into you.” This experience would form a philosophical base for their careers. Michael adds, “I think that what was important about Monterey , also, was that the main industry there was, and still is, tourism, so food and food preparation is important. It's what a lot of people do for a living there. The attitude was: ‘We entertain the world; we have the aquarium; we have Pebble Beach Country Club.' When people go to Monterey , they're not going to cook. They are going to go out to eat. So the whole industry is based on food preparation.”

Michael reflects longingly about the camaraderie in the food industry in Monterey : “Your coworkers all came from somewhere else in the country, specifically to work in Monterey in food service. In the Poconos, you don't talk to colleagues about food. I remember going out after long shifts in Monterey to Denny's at 2:00 in the morning after having done these big parties, and you eat your ham and cheese omelet and you're sitting around talking about menus. You're sitting around talking about who's doing what. It's almost like a gossip column for ‘Hey, so-and-so's making this dessert.' You're in conversations with someone about a dessert and it's a different culture.”

In 1984, an offer came from another Hyatt employee to work back east. Michael explains: “When Elvi graduated from Vet Tech school, we knew that if we wanted to own a home or if we wanted to have a business, it wasn't going to happen in Monterey because it was just too cost-prohibitive. The apartment that I rented in 1976 for $175 a month on the Pacific Ocean was $1,500 in the early to mid-1980s. Now it's $3,400 a month. It's incredible, and they haven't changed the rug either, because in January [2004], I looked in the window and it's the same tile and it's the same rug!” So in 1984, they moved to the Pocono Mountain area of northeastern Pennsylvania . Continuing, Mike reflects: “I didn't put a lot of thought into what I was doing. In retrospect, I probably could have made better decisions, but that's how we ended up in East Stroudsburg .” He became chef at the Dansbury Depot train station/restaurant when it opened in August 1984. Michael was there for one year--the first six months as the pastry chef, the second six months as the executive chef. Elvi became a full-time licensed Vet Tech in Bethlehem , Pennsylvania , at Northside Animal Hospital , remaining there for ten years.

In 1985, Michael became the first executive chef at the Blue Herron Inn when it opened in the Lake Harmony area, staying there for six years. In April 1986, he was accepted into the prestigious American Culinary Federation, Inc. Chef De Lotto remained an active culinary competitor and won a bronze medal in the Culinary Salon for the northeast quadrant of the state of Pennsylvania in 1989. The Blue Herron Inn was part of the Jack Frost/Big Boulder Big Two Resorts complex, and Mike was vested toward a pension with other benefits. He could have just sat there for a very long time. But his longing for artistic culinary and financial independence burned deep and passionately. Besides, Elvi and Michael were not seeing each other very much. Michael was off on Mondays and would sleep into the afternoon out of sheer exhaustion.

Elvi was missing the great West Coast food. With their shared passion for fine ingredients, produce, and cuisine, they often found the area disappointing, especially when comparing commercially available massed-produced Pennsylvania breads to the outstanding West Coast ones. Elvi explains: “At the Acme market here, they had onions, potatoes, carrots, and iceberg lettuce, and that was about it! It was terrible. In 1989, I started baking and selling at the Farmer's Market on Main Street in Stroudsburg. The bread at that time in Pennsylvania was so pathetic that I couldn't stand it. Michael gave me a KitchenAid for my birthday and I got started. I've always been, I guess you could say, entrepreneurial, wanting to make money. I met Frank Pollack, who has Rolling Hills Farm, I gave him some bread, and he said that I should put up a stand at the Farmer's Market, so I baked for that every Saturday.” It was during this time that Elvi had her culinary epiphany: “I was taking the flour, the yeast, and thinking, ‘Look what you're producing.' Then you see somebody appreciate it and say to you, ‘Wow! This is great! Its texture feels good and it tastes good!' It's the whole thing of producing something, and I like being a producer.”

So Elvi's initiative started them on the road to culinary independence, and they opened Sassafras Ovens bakery. Mike was realizing the value of his CIA education more than ever: “This is where the Menus & Facilities course that I took at the Culinary Institute came in. We were living in a development near Effort, Pennsylvania , and we needed a name for the bakery and we walked around the yard and it was all sassafras, so that's where that name came from. We agreed that we were going to start a bakery because we just needed to work together and that's when I started riding around looking for a facility. I was driving up and down Route 209 in the West End of Monroe County [Brodheadsville and west] and we also looked all around the Poconos. Near Kresgeville, there was an abandoned gas station on Route 209--it was a cinder block building with a barn roof. It was set back off of Route 209, so there was parking available in the front. I called the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and got the traffic rating, which was ten thousand cars a day! This is what I learned in the CIA 's Menus & Facilities course in terms of planning. I went down there with my tape measure and the building was 40 feet by 24 feet, and I went home, got out my graph paper, and said, ‘Okay, this will be the receiving door, this is where the retail entrance will be, this is where the production area will be, this is where we store our ingredients.' I put it all on graph paper for planning. Initially Elvi saw the building and she said, ‘No way, it looks terrible!' I said, ‘Well, there is a way if you put a picture window here,' and I went to the fellow who owned the building and I said, ‘I will rent this building from you for $500 a month if you put in a bay window right here.' ”

Mike did stucco work and cleaned, and they planted a garden out front with an impressive variety of produce as well as flowers and a composting section. The converted grease-monkey haven with herbs now growing around the perimeter of the building became an aesthetic landmark. The impressive gardens and flowers became a tradition for the De Lottos, as they would continue this nurturing at Antelao in 2000.

Elvi laughingly says, “We opened January 1, 1992 , and did $57! Everybody was asking us for donuts and white bread! I called Michael and I was crying and referring to the customers in not-so-nice names!” Michael was obligated to finish his final year at the Big Two until March 17, 1992 . Elvi ran the bakery by herself for ten weeks. He would go down in the mornings and make Danish and pastries, then go to his job while Elvi ran the bakery, which was open from 6:00am to 6:00pm . Within six months, they had two hundred people coming into the bakery each Saturday. Elvi describes the schedule: “We would arrive at 4:30am and get back home at 8:30pm . And when we would do the Farmer's Market, we would be there Friday night until 9:30 or 10:00pm and go back to the bakery at 3:00am Saturday morning. But we learned that we could work WITH each other, and we learned that the important part about working with each other was that we did not do the same thing. We had defined areas. I would handle this, Michael would handle that, and we found that we worked very well together. We enjoyed working together and it has to be that way.” Mike joins in: “The years at the bakery pointed out to me that if you do something of high quality, people are going to patronize your business. I didn't actually realize that before. I also think that the bakery was important because our convictions about quality and seasonal ingredients were formed there. They have a history to them, going back a long way for us.” All of these realities are summed up and reinforced by Elvi's confident mantra: “We didn't read an article in a cooking magazine that told us any of that.”

Michael creatively started to put all of his equipment knowledge and experience to great use. There was a boy's camp getting rid of their walk-in coolers, and the owner told Mike, “I'll have a bulldozer here tomorrow to push everything under and destroy the coolers, but if you're here and can get them out of here, you can have them.” The next day, there was Mike with his Ford Ranger, disassembling the coolers and lugging them onto his truck, and popping wheelies the whole way home. Michael also obtained a steam cooker that the Monroe County Vocational-Technical School was throwing out (because they didn't have a place to plug it in!), baking an incredible number of pies with it over the course of nine years.

The bottom line: Michael's appliance recycling savvy allowed the entire bakery to be born for about $10,000. “Which we paid back in nine months!” Elvi adds. They started the bakery with a time frame in mind. Mike knowingly explains, “There's a birth of a business, there's a life, then the death. If you can call the death, then it's a success.” Elvi adds, “Right! You don't want it to die without your okay. You want to call the death and you want to be the one saying that it's over. We left the bakery at the peak.” The couple admits that it was in the back of their collective culinary thoughts that they wanted to open a restaurant someday.

In 1999, the De Lottos sold the bakery. Michael retreated to his woodshop, but Elvi had a restless winter adjusting to life without the garden. After some well-deserved rest, their culinary passion called. Mike gave Elvi the green light: “Elvi, start looking in the paper. I'll do my drive-around thing again and we'll look for a place where we can open a restaurant.” Yet again, Mike remembered his lessons at the CIA , as he confronted one of the major considerations in choosing a location: the sewage system. An existing central sewer was paramount to avoid a $40,000 to $60,000 investment in a new hookup.

Elvi noticed that the New Age Shop on Main Street in Delaware Water Gap was going under. Having always liked Delaware Water Gap and hearing the jazz greats from the area such as Bob Dorough, Michael confirms, “I always caught this pleasant vibe here, that it was a nice place.” And Elvi admits, “I'm converted. I love Delaware Water Gap. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else . . . except in January and February!” Michael is sympathetic to Elvi's feelings “It's hard for Elvi because I grew up in Yonkers , and to me, Delaware Water Gap looks like a great neighborhood. She's from Monterey , and Delaware Water Gap looked to her like something you'd want to take a bulldozer to! But you can sense a neighborhood when you walk through it. You don't have to look at it to tell what people are doing.”

Elvi agreed to look at the New Age Shop and spoke to the landlord, who said that a restaurant was not possible. However, she wasn't giving up. Once again, Michael's trusty tape measure traveled with him to check out the Victorian-style house. He immediately envisioned twenty seats in a front dining room. The restaurant would be found easily on the main state road (Route 611) that runs through the small borough. Michael likes that Delaware Water Gap has maintained its own identity, separate from the large area known as the Poconos: “Everything, even the politics in Water Gap, is separate from the Poconos. There is no other town in the Poconos that you could say, ‘That's like Delaware Water Gap.' It is its own entity.” Elvi concurs: “Plus, we are not part of the Poconos. We are Delaware Water Gap. ”

So Michael made copious mental notes of the Gap: “What do we have near Delaware Water Gap? A hospital five minutes away. A university five minutes away. A courthouse ten minutes away. So all of these professional people have to come to the same area. They do not want to eat where they work. They would like to eat five or ten minutes away from where they work to get away. It's perfect. Also, we have all of these people in New Jersey who want to go “out” for the evening. Well, it's great because they feel that if they are paying a toll, they are going somewhere. They cross the I-80 Delaware River Bridge, pay the toll, they're in Delaware Water Gap in three minutes, and they're out for the evening.”

Working out details with the building owner, the De Lottos began the transformation. From April to October 2000, they worked around the clock to build Antelao, which is named for the largest peak in the Dolomite Mountains of northeastern Italy , near where Michael's ancestors originate. The legend of Antelao, king of the Dolomites, tells of the mythical ruler over the pink-tinted mountains. Mike knows the story well: “Antelao's daughter was stolen away and the king turned the pink roses that carpeted the Dolomite slopes into stone forever more. Today, especially at sunset, the white stucco houses in the village at the foot of the mountains take on a pink glow. It's quite a sight.”

The chef plunged into building his own kitchen and the pastry kitchen in the lower level, not coming up for air until he made the dining room tables. “Building the lower pastry kitchen was a lot of work! Originally, there were no stairs going from the main floor down to where we now have the pastry kitchen. There was an abandoned set of stairs that was hanging in the middle of nowhere, but if you were in the lower level and wanted to come up to the main level, you had to walk around the building!” Michael exclaims. And Elvi knows the importance of documenting this hard work: “We were smart. We took many before-and-after photographs to show all of the work that we've done to the building.” The building was all fieldstone in the lower area, so Mike plastered it, painted it, and brought everything up to code in terms of the electric and plumbing systems. Sensing that discretion is the better part of valor, the only thing he didn't take care of was the propane gas hookup. The landlord painted the outside of the building, and Mike and Elvi painted the interior. Then Elvi planted the magnificent herb garden and flowers in the front and side yards.

To outfit the kitchen, once again it came time for Michael and Elvi to repair, rehabilitate, and be the ultimate recyclers of equipment. They refer to themselves jokingly as the “Scavenger King and Queen”; they're just not “buy-it-off-the-rack” people. The grill was gathering dust for five years in the garage of a friend, so Mike bought it from him for $500! When the old IGA grocery store in Portland , Pennsylvania , was auctioning equipment, Michael picked up “the little oven.” The kitchen hood came from the American Cookery restaurant in Delaware Water Gap and the dish machine was picked up from Cook's Touch restaurant in Cresco. The stainless steel table used to belong to the Blue Herron Inn. A refrigerator came from Leon 's Pizzeria in Mount Pocono . The only brand-new item in the Antelao kitchen is the convection oven bought by Mike's father as a good-luck present.

Mike elaborates on their resourcefulness: “All of our pieces of equipment were at a minimal expense and some items were in need of rehab. The table that I work on next to the pot sink came from the lady who went out of business across from the Stroud Mall. The microwave oven came from the Shepard House where we're sitting during this interview [laughter]. Walk around Antelao's building with me and I know where everything came from.” Elvi adds: “The best one of all was when someone called us when the Tannersville Learning Center burned down and told us to get over there because they're going to demolish what's left. We went there and waded in water up to our knees, God knows what was under us.” Mike quickly contributes: “We gave the crane operator $50 and he hauled out a refrigerator for us that we now have in the lower level! We found the freezer listed in the newspaper, used for $300.

The oven in which Elvi bakes the breads came from an auction in Scranton . The De Lottos went to the auction and got a bread warmer that turned out to be a loser, but in the field behind the auction area was an old, rusted Blodgett oven that the owner regarded as junk. Of course, Michael knew he could rebuild the oven, realizing that it was still structurally sound. Initially offering $250 for the piece of “junk,” he was victorious with a final amount of $300.

These tales are great lessons for recent graduates of culinary programs, yet Michael and Elvi agree that some people in the industry would look condescendingly at these tactics. Mike defends his and Elvi's approach: “I think that if they had the knowledge of how to repair things, they would think differently. And, if you sandblast it and paint it, it will really look like something.” Further testimony is offered by Elvi: “Many times, you go to these auctions and items are disgusting and filthy, but if you get out there with a razor blade and scrape all of the grease off of it, you'll get fifty to sixty years out of it!” One of their easiest conquests was a kitchen hood completely covered with gunk. But, upon close inspection, Mike found, “When they bought it, they installed it with the plastic shipping covering on!” Elvi says, “That was easy, just peel and go!”

On October 5, 2000 , the table was set for the De Lottos' new venture and Antelao's doors were opened. Elvi's role as pastry chef includes making rolls, desserts, salad dressings, and some sauces. She's also the front-of-the-house person, serving all of the tables, taking care of the flowers, the tablecloths, and more She does laundry and polishes the floors. Michael is the executive chef. He says, “Yes, I'm all in charge of one now . . . myself! I went from being in charge of many to one!” Elvi adds jokingly, “Yes. That's not me! He's just in charge of himself.”

The outside appearance of Antelao adds to the sensory experience. Even the signs are award winners (Monroe County Signage Award, 2003). Elvi has been acknowledged by the Monroe County Garden Club. And Chef De Lotto has added finishing touches to the 125 feet of sidewalk area, trekking back and forth to a New Jersey quarry to purchase pink stone similar to dolomite. One of their only “breaks” during the year is their annual van ride each April to be the expert culinary staff for a house of persons attending the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta , Georgia . (editor's note: click here for a sampling of the menus presented this year)

Antelao is one of the only restaurants in the area that features a seasonal menu. Customers truly look forward to each new offering. Seasonality has been a priority for the De Lottos since solidifying their convictions during the early days of Sassafras Ovens. Elvi elaborates: “We would never bake a cherry pie unless it was cherry pie season, which was only two weeks! And after the two weeks were up, we were done producing cherry pies. It was the same with the short time when peaches were available and also strawberries. It's the same now with Antelao in that, sure, I can get strawberries year-round, but we're only going to use the local strawberries for a short period of time. We're only going to use locally grown peaches and the local rhubarb.” While Elvi and Mike are executing the present menu, their creative wheels are turning about the next season. The couple is constantly writing down ideas in the ever-nearby notebook. Mike explains, “When an idea hits us, we go write it down.” Elvi chimes in, “I also have all of those little scraps of paper on the bulletin boards.”

Artists execute via their passion, and the De Lottos are no exception. “The passion in cooking is so much of a sensory experience. When you're making a stock, it's exciting to see it perfectly clear, the aromatics come out, that's what makes your blood flow, as you're doing something right. Or, when you get a perfect piece of fish and you prepare it and you see people who have no idea why they're enjoying it so much, but you know why. That's the good part,” Michael says knowledgeably. Intimately and personally, he knows the holistic procedures but also the little adjustments that he's made, and that's where he feels the passion enters, from very, very simple things. For example, he explains, “Like a perfectly tournéed carrot in the New England Chowder that is buried in a sauce, but YOU know that it's there and YOU know that it's perfect. From a culinary aspect, it's always the minutiae that make it exciting.”

But some people know at least a little bit about what the De Lottos do to prepare their food. They estimate that over 50% of their patrons drive forty-five minutes to an hour or more to experience Antelao. Many of them know that it's worth the trip. They are often more experienced in a wider variety of food and a wider variety of restaurants. Mike evaluates, “I think that they drive because there are so many mediocre places out there, and when they do come across some place where things are done well and considerable effort has gone into things, they just know the difference, even if they're not educated in the culinary arts. When you experience something of that quality, you just know that it's different.” And Antelao is different from top to bottom, from left to right, from inside and out, in terms of the soups and appetizers, the rolls, the main entrees, the desserts, the way those tables and each of the senses is served and waited upon. Elvi recognizes, “And, it also helps that a lot of the people who we serve really are interested in the food. We aren't the hip place to go. We're not the place that people say, ‘Oh, you've got to try it. It is so cool!' or ‘We all meet here.' We really do get the food people, and honestly, that's all we really want coming here is the food people, because it is not fun serving people who don't appreciate what we do here. The people who don't have a clue about what we're doing might as well be gassing up their car!”

Mike adds: “I think what makes us successful in that manner is how Elvi opens the doors and lets people experience everything in that way. If Antelao just had a service person, it's not the same experience. It's a sensory experience, but I think that it's complemented with how Elvi presents it and points things out to them that they might not otherwise notice. I think that's what makes Antelao special.” Elvi adds: “It's fun when I can get an interchange going with the customers and they ask me questions like. ‘So why is the chicken different? It's just a chicken,' and then they try the chicken and they say ‘Wow! This is chicken!' Then they know why we're using the forcemeat and all of those special touches.” One of Antelao's steady customers even points out that he notices how all of the vegetables are cut. But how do Mike and Elvi's concoctions actually taste? Several people with solid manners often forego restraint and eat from their dining partner's plate because they want to try everything. And with the bring-your-own-wine policy at Antelao, trying more than one menu item is very affordable.