Lo Coco's Restaurant

Restaurants

How do you solve a problem like Maria LoCoco? She of the bright eyes and ruby-red lips. Julie Andrews had nuthin' on this Maria, owner, head chef, and best server ever to grace a family restaurant. For 24 years, Maria has been doing the pasta-pizza-payroll routine up to sixty hours a week at the restaurant her dad started. But she never wilts or snaps or even growls at cranky customers, even those in dire need of a quick calamari fix. One reason, she says, is that she has been dancing in perfect harmony with Joseph Cooper, that elegant salt-and-pepper-haired man with the silver jewelry, black turtleneck ... and those jeans ... fuggedaboutit. Four nights a week the pair overlaps, tap-dancing their way between cramped tables with the red-checked cloths and the endless parade of takeout orders. Joseph is a concert pianist on the side, which explains why he and Maria consider every night a performance where their moves are flawless and the paying customer happy. Maria says she is so busy "watching the restaurant with the volume off," a reference to her level of concentration, that she can't screw up. Nor does she. They can stand on top of our spaghetti anytime.

Best of 2006

US

CA

Oakland

Alameda

4270 Piedmont Ave

Best of the East Bay 2006

A Visual Map of The Best of the East Bay 2006... I started mapping the East Bay Express Article, but they were leaving out too much relevant info... so I forged ahead with info from friends and themenupage.com