| As seen in Columbus Dispatch 8/30/2009 |
| Empress of pastry, at 85, can't give it up |
| By Mike Harden |
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CHRIS RUSSELL | Dispatch |
Stella Chapin, 85, puts the final touches on a batch of tiramisu she is creating for Vittoria's Ristorante. "I don't ever want to give up my cooking and baking," she says.
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On a recent night, 85-year-old "Mama Stella" Chapin worked the house at Vittoria's Ristorante on Sawmill Parkway.
A chef's jacket advertised her profession as the empress of pastry, but on this night she was moving like a honeybee from one table to another -- part ombudsman of entrees, part ambassador of goodwill.
If there is a devotee of Italian cuisine in this city who doesn't know Mama Stella Chapin, he grew up eating far too many SpaghettiO's.
Chapin was a 15-year-old high-school student working part time at an Albers supermarket in Grandview Heights when shopper Rosina Presutti, co-founder of Presutti's Villa, marveled, "What a beautiful little girl you are. Why don't you come to work for me?"
Stella, who took her first job at 12 as a $2.50-a-week domestic, made the leap into what has become a 70-year love affair with cooking.
"I don't ever want to give up my cooking and baking," she recently confessed. "I don't work for the money, I'm getting overpaid. I just love people. I make the cheesecake here, the tiramisu. They tell me, 'C'mon, Stella, it's time to go home. Get some rest.' "
She is a perpetual-motion machine that requires only to be pointed in the general direction of the kitchen.
Insiders at Vittoria's confide, in private, that the genteel octogenarian who solicitously indulges the smallest wants of diners can rage like a boatswain's mate in the kitchen.
In 1964, she took a rambling brick house on High Street north of Lane Avenue and created Casa di Pasta.
"The day I opened, I had $3 in a cigar box," she said. "I couldn't even afford a cash register.
"I did it against my husband's wishes," she said of husband, Mike. "He was a head driller at Marble Cliff Quarry."
His opposition faded when Stella began paying him more than the quarry.
She wore the same uniform as her servers, explaining, "If I were dressed differently just because I was the owner, they would think I was a little above them."
On Sundays, diners thrilled to the strains of Puccini's aria Nessun Dorma as music majors from nearby Ohio State tested their mettle as tenors.
Stella never wanted it to end. But, after 35 years, her grit had been worn smooth. She had lost Mike. Cancer was diagnosed in two of her chefs. And always, no matter how many decades rolled, there was the little boy she lost.
"Killed by a car," she said. "He was 7 years old. If I hadn't had my God in my life when I lost my child, I don't know what I'd have done."
Casa di Pasta had been closed almost a decade when Chapin's longtime friends Marty Savko and Vince Romanelli launched Vittoria's.
She said Savko reminded her anew of the vow he'd made several years earlier: "One day, Stella, you will work for me."
"What am I going to do?" a restless-in-retirement Chapin asked.
"Anything you want to do," he answered. "Anything."
"I think I'll go back in the kitchen and see what's going on," she said.
Retired columnist Mike Harden writes Wednesday and Sunday Metro columns.
cosmosmariner46@
yahoo.com
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Stella (Lombardi) Chapin
CHAPIN (LOMBARDI) Stella Lombardi Chapin, age 85, passed away Monday, May 17, 2010. Stella was the former owner of Casa di Pasta Restaurant for 32 years and currently associated with Vittoria's Restaurant known as the "Empress of Pastry". She was an avid Ohio State Football fan and member of St. Agatha Catholic Church. Stella is preceded in death by her husband of 52 years Mike, son Ricky and brother Edward. Survived by children, Beanie (Bob White) Gentile, Rosalie Chapin and Michael (Evelyn) Chapin; grandchildren, Roger, Brian (Mia), Allison (Dave), Chris (Kim), Michael and Richard; great-grandchildren, Megan, Chrysta and Roman. She is also survived by her loving brothers, sisters and numerous nieces, nephews and all of her special friends. Friends may call THURSDAY, May 20, 2010 at the JOHN QUINT TREBONI FUNERAL HOME, 1177 W. 5th Avenue, from 3-8 p.m. Funeral Liturgy will be held 10 a.m. on FRIDAY May 21, 2010 at the funeral home, Rev. Fr. Daniel L. Ochs, Officiating, Interment will follow at the St. Joseph Cemetery, 6440 South High Street, Lockbourne, Ohio. Condolences may be sent via www.johnquint.com.
Published in The Columbus Dispatch on May 19, 2010
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