Please share your memories of Laszlo and your favorite dishes from eating at any of the Fono restaurants. We will be delighted to read them.
Gourmet Memory Blog
Please share your memories of Laszlo and your favorite dishes from eating at any of the Fono restaurants. We will be delighted to read them.
We just learned of Lazlo’s passing. What a remarkable life he had both in Hungary and in the U.S. Mary and I had the privilege of working with Lazo and Paulette who set the standard for food, hospitality and design that changed casual dining forever. Mary and I still work with young restaurateurs and hardly a day goes by that we’re not thinking of the details they boat taught us. We were so proud to attend to carry on their standard for nearly 15 years at The Magic Pans in Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and beyond. We celebrate a life well-lived.
RIP Laszlo. Thank you for all the fun times and delicious food over the years at Babbo’s. You were one of a kind and so was the dining experience and the cuisine. My condolences to the Fono family.
Dear Paulette & Andrea,
Like many, I didn’t get to meet Laszlo but have heard fascinating stories & shared many photos of the family. I feel I know him.
In the later 1970’s, I lived & worked in center city Philadelphia, a very small gem in the 4th largest US city. I loved it & felt very at home, even though I’m from a tiny Iowa town called Coon Rapids where Khrushchev visited a farmer & businessman, Roswell Garst with his wife in 1959.
Those yrs in Philadelphia, we often lunched at The Magic Pan on Chestnut Street which was part of Philadelphia’s restaurant renaissance. I’d never eaten crepes. The whole experience was completely new for me. My favorite was the banana flamed dessert. It was extravagant…and so much fun.
Over the yrs as I’ve heard Andrea tell what she’s making for her parents for this or that like common, everyday dishes, I’ve marveled. Many I barely knew the names of.
Laszlo & Paulette, I honor you for the quality of life you raised her in.
I love having been on the “front lines” with you.
Laszlo, you are in our hearts & minds.
Bravo for a life lived as an Olympian!
I so enjoyed going to The Magic Pan at Hillsdale in San Mateo for many years. I think I went there once a week for years and years and was so sad to see it go. I also loved Bravo Fono at Stanford in Palo Alto. Truly delicious food and wonderful service. Though I never met the Fono family, I knew of them and admired their accomplishments immensely.
Cucumber salad. And there was a cold sour cherry soup at Paprika’s Fono… And a kind of soft flatbread that we’d rub a clove of garlic onto.
At Bravo Fono bread pudding.
Laszlo was always dapper and his keen eye took everything in. Think of all the skills it takes to run a restaurant, dealing with employees, vendors, customers, doling out charm and admonishments and requests. I liked seeing him at the front of Babbo’s in a host role as people would walk in without reservations and he would do mental calculations to decide who should be seated where.
I have been so fortunate in my life, to have met Andrea in the early 2000s and through her, her parents Laszlo and Paulette. I have been the receiver of compelling conversation in their home, glasses of wine, cups of coffee, delicious meals and even crepes (the way they were made at The Magic Pan-back in the day). Speaking of the Magic Pan, I went there for dinner before my prom–probably the only dance I went to high school. Whenever I was in Denver’s Larimer Square, I always took the opportunity to eat at The Magic Pan.
Back to Laszlo and Paulette, wow, it is amazing to see what a couple, who felt they had to leave their home country (because of the threat of communism) did in the US. They worked hard, very hard, like so many other immigrants in our history. And in their work they-along with Andrea-created hospitality for so many people, for their occasions-happy, sad, casual, important, just the need to eat, etc. In my family, food is always at the center of everything.
To The Fonos–thank you for touching so many people’s lives. To Laszlo, egészségedre, for a life fully lived.
Sitting in my favorite cafe in Trieste, Italy, sipping my Illy coffee I am remembering meeting Andrea’s father, Laszlo Fono many years ago in one of his wonderful restaurants.
What a charming man. He also obviously had excellent taste as he chose Paulette as his wife.
Am so grateful to have met the Fono family. They have enriched and enlightened my life. You are missed.
I also want to add how moved I was by Andrea and Frank taking such thoughtful and loving care of Babbo in his senior years. Am sure he appreciated it very much.
Am so happy you spent your last years in your beautiful home with lovely Paulette, being taken care of so lovingly by Andrea and Frank.