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STEPPING OUT
LOUISVILLE - When you get an opportunity, you take it.
That's why after 12 and one-half years of running successful Boulder institution Antica Roma on the Pearl Street Mall, Silvano and Elvira De Luca closed the restaurant's doors and opened Pane e Vino in Louisville.
In 1991, the De Lucas were living in Rome, and both were looking for new careers. Silvano was a mechanical engineer and had worked for General Motors for 11 years, often traveling to the United States. But he was tired of being someone else's employee.
"I wanted to do something on my own," he says. As for Elvira, she was "an accountant who hates numbers." A friend who lived in Boulder invited them to visit. They found it so beautiful and so fascinating that they decided Boulder was the place to raise their two children.
Neither Silvano nor Elvira had any formal cooking training other than cooking for family and friends, but they decided to open a tiny cafe, the original Antica Roma. In the beginning, Elvira made pasta every day by hand, rolling it out with a rolling pin. They had so much success, according to Elvira, that they began to expand the business, ultimately moving into a...