Courtesy LoRusso Family
Rich LoRusso, the chef and co-proprietor of LoRusso's Cucina, who made his name not only with good food but good cheer, has died. He was 63.
While starting out in the dining industry years ago, LoRusso cooked at Godfather’s in Maryland Heights and the Mayfair Hotel. He struck out on his own with his wife and partner, Terri, and, initially, with his brother Tom, in 1986. Within two years, there was a rave review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The following year, the restaurant moved to its present-day, larger space on Watson Road.
LoRusso always seemed particularly open to the needs of patrons and potential patrons. Without any public fuss about it, for instance, the menu over the years evolved to offer more options to vegetarians. The atmosphere was casual, especially in the front of the house. For many years, guests were greeted at the door with a 1939 penny-operated fortune teller scale. (Longtime customer Greg Rhomberg was thrilled when he talked LoRusso out of the piece for his Antique Warehouse collection.)
Everyone today talks about sourcing locally, but LoRusso did it with ease and efficiency. Chef Michael Holmes tells of LoRusso walking out the back door of the kitchen and to the nearby back yard of Holmes’ father, where he would gather food for that night’s menu. The harvesting often ended with the landowner and the chef having cold beers and a discussion of the best way to pickle okra or whatever the season’s bounty offered. Lots of locals worked for him on their way up, from Maria Keena (both front and back of the house) now of KMOX, to Rick Lewis of Grace Meat + Three.
Courtesy LoRusso Family
Rich and Terri LoRusso with John Pizzarelli
Besides being universally loved by his peers, LoRusso made friends with everyone. The famous jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli, who came in one night after a show, became close friends with LoRusso. Eventually, Pizzarelli brought his equally well-known musician father, Bucky Pizzarelli. The senior Pizzarelli was so smitten, he once returned three of the four nights that he was in town during his next gig and eventually had a dish named for him. Of course, they weren't the only patrons who became friends, famous or not. (Surely, LoRusso was the only restaurateur in the country who had a bank vice president making him a pineapple upside-down birthday cake every year.)
LoRusso was big on civic involvement in all sorts of places. His loyalty to his alma mater, Southwest High School, popped up time and again. Perhaps his best-known charity work was the restaurant’s Pasta Bowl competition. Various submissions from the public were served at the event, and then a vote was held. The winner appeared on the menu for the next year (sometimes longer). Each serving meant a donation to Operation Food Search. LoRusso's generosity to charities both national (such as the March of Dimes) to local (such as organizations serving his own neighborhood, The Hill) was constant.
This past November, after LoRusso was diagnosed with ALS, his pals organized “For the Love of The Chef,” a benefit in which 24 restaurants’ chefs showed up, dished out, and shared their affection for him. The event sold out immediately, with many police, fire and EMT personnel in attendance. There were more volunteers than could be utilized, people from the hospitality industry and beyond who wanted to contribute.
LoRusso's sense of humor stayed with him until the end of his life. The guy with the buoyant smile, who loved his oft-used Fred Flintstone costume, kept joking. And his devoted friends kept showing their support. It was a tribute to him, surely, and a gift to his dear, strong wife, Terri, and their boys. The friends will learn that all of those efforts made them stronger, too.
Even as he neared the end of his life, LoRusso made one final, selfless gesture: that his body be donated to ALS research.
