About Us
An Italian Cookbook
A Dallas Culinary Tradition
Continues with Wende & Aaron
Meet Wende Stevenson and Aaron Goss, restaurant veterans who have served and managed some of the best restaurants in Dallas including The Green Room, Lola The Restaurant, Ziziki’s, Shinsei and Mot Hai Ba.
In fact, Wende got her start in the restaurant industry working for Antonio Gattini at MoMo Italian Specialities in the 1980’s, Little did she know, 30 years later, she’d become an owner, alongside her husband, Aaron Gross. Antonio Gattini was, Wende says, “the most fascinating man I’d ever met.” Fresh from Italy, he presented traditional dining in courses—primi and secondi—and was not interested in making concessions. Pasta sent out with the main course? Never! “I apologize, I’m Italian,” Gattini said in a disclaimer on the menu. Dallas had to be taught. When Gross and Stevenson bought MoMo Italian Kitchen in 2017 from Gattini’s son Carlo—who had gone on to the gelato business with Botolino Gelato Artigianale—they kept Ferannda Gossetti’s recipes intact. Because MoMo had always been their favorite restaurant and date-night spot. And now, they hope to continue this grand Italian tradition set forth by Fernanda, Antonio and Carlo.
“We were looking to open a neighborhood bistro, and that’s very much what we got,” Aaron Goss says. “It is very much a Lake Highlands institution and a gem in the tradition of authentic Italian Cuisine.”
A little history of MoMo . In 1952, Fernanda Gosetti and her sisters, Anna and Gugielmina decided to restart "La Cucina Italiana", because sadly, the world-famous magazine had stopped publishing during WWII. They wanted to recreate a magazine that would spread the joys of Italian cooking around the world and evoled it to the culture-shaping publication that it is today. Fernanda Gosetti, the Julia Child of Northern Italy. went on to become one of the century's most important gastronomic innovators and ambassadors of Italian cooking (Seriously, Google her. She was a legend). To say Fernanda Gosetti set the table for how we think about and enjoy Italian cuisine would be an understatement. Her recipes and techniques continue to inspire chefs and thrill diners all over the world. In fact, MoMo Italian Kitchen in Lake Highlands was founded with Fernanda Gosetti's recipes. So how did these recipes of Italy’s Julia Childs end up in Dallas? Fernanda’s son Antonio Gattini, moved to Dallas in 1985. Antonio was determined to bring the food and the traditions that he had been raised with to Texas. So in 1986 MoMo Italian Kitchen was born.
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