Carlo Ventura and Emile Frances might seem unlikely business partners.
He’s a 60-something Italian who’s spent the last 25 years managing at Valley resorts. She’s a 20-something Frenchwoman trained as an optician.
Together, though, they’ve opened Carlo and Emilie’s Gourmet Deli on the southwest corner of Alma School and Germann in south Chandler.
The small Italian deli takes over the strip-mall space that until last summer housed Chandler BBQ Company (next to Rosati’s Pizza).
It may be a little hard to locate at first, but it’s well worth the effort for its tantalizing menu ranging from beef bracioli to artichoke parmigiana to fire-roasted butternut squash tiramisu.
Although both Ventura and Frances come from cooking-centric families, it’s the Puglia native (think the high heel of the Italian “boot”) Â who’s the driving force in the scratch kitchen.
The deli case is loaded with imported meats and cheeses, but Ventura bakes his own bread, makes his own pork sausage links and meatballs, cures his own pastrami, and pulls his own mozzarella.
Soon, he says, he’ll start making the deli’s ravioli and gnocchi.
Inspired by DeFalco’s Italian Deli in Scottsdale, Ventura and Francis already have set up shelves they plan to stock with imported groceries.
And a liquor license also is in the works.
The pair met at Chandler’s Ocotillo Golf Resort, where Ventura had been working the past 15 years. (Before that, he spent a decade at the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park.)
After her parents divorced, Frances had moved to the States with her mother. Ventura introduced Frances’ mother to the man who’s now her stepfather (and third partner in the deli).
“It was Carlo’s dream to open his own place so we decided to do that all together,” she says.
Carlo and Emilie’s is open 10 a.m.-7 p.m.Monday through Saturday. Catering also is available.
