Taste of Italy Restaurateur seasons Atlanta neighborhood with authentic cuisine
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iccardo Ullio has brought authentic Italian cuisine and the intimate environment of an urban gathering spot to Atlanta's Inman Park. Ullio, CE 90, MS EnvE 93, is chef and chief at Sotto Sotto, a cozy trattoria he and his wife, MaDora, opened on Highland Avenue in February 1999. With Sotto Sotto's resounding success, the couple opened an upscale Italian pizzeria, Fritti, right next door in August 2000. Both Sotto Sotto and Fritti have reaped enthusiastic reviews from restaurant critics and the public alike. Atlanta journal-Constitution restaurant critic John Kessler says the block of former retail stores Ullio refashioned into his little empire "should now be dubbed Hip Little Italy." While he studied engineering at Tech, Ullio also was learning the restaurant business, working his way through school by cooking at an Atlanta eatery. When he graduated, Ullio delved straight into his passion, opening the restaurant Pasta da Pulcinella in Atlanta with a partner. The partner-
ship ended and Ullio went on to work at Pricci and Coco Pazzo, polishing his self-taught cooking skills. Like all good Tech graduates, Ullio was meticulous about planning his business and culinary strategies, spending a year formulating a business plan and taking a three-month culinary research tour of his native Italy to devise a menu that would reflect authentic cuisine. Then he designed and built his restaurant himself. Within two months of opening Sotto Sotto, the restaurant was inundated with hungry patrons drawn by good reviews and wildfire-quick word-of-mouth endorsement. "We were very pleasantly surprised by the success," Ullio says. The sensation the restaurant
Mellow Mushroom any a college student has survived on pizza. Two Georgia Tech roomies thrived on the stuff. Rocky Reeves' and Mike Nicholson's business has mushroomed into one of the top 100 pizza companies in the country. They both helped pay their way through Tech by working at pizza joints. At some point Reeves and Nicholson decided they could deliver a better product. They opened the first "hole in the wall" on Spring Street in
caused spurred Ullio to open the slightly more casual, but equally authentic Neapolitan pizzeria next door, Fritti, which takes its name from a class of fried appetizers popular in Italy. Fritti proved as attractive to Atlanta foodies as its sister. Ullio attributes his accomplishments in the city's competitive restaurant marketplace to providing something he feels was lacking before. "We want people to eat real Italian food," Ullio says. "Much of what is served as Italian food in restaurants has very little to do with Italy, except for maybe a few misspelled names. "Our roots are in home-cooked Italian food." — Maria M. Lameiras
1974. They called the place Mellow Mushroom. Hey, it was the 70s, man. Reeves, IM 79, and Nicholson, CIs 74, obviously had the ingredients to succeed. Their business expanded into more than 50 franchises in eight states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and, of course, Georgia. Gross sales in 2001 reportedly topped $30 million. That's a lot of dough. Maybe that's why the dough-twirling mushroom character that serves as the pizza company's logo is smiling,
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