Laura and David Shea

If the kitchen was a smidge steamier, Laura and David Shea may still be strangers. Ten years ago, the owners of Brooklyn’s farm-fresh Applewood and kitchen store Applewares were students at the Culinary Institute of America, cooking a dinner feting famed French chef Paul Bocuse. “I was working in one kitchen, while he was working in another,” Laura says, “and then we saw each other—through steam and past bubbling stock pots. It was serendipity.”

The couple unveiled Applewood in 2004, and it was like having two children at once. Literally. “I gave birth to my second child just three weeks after Applewood opened,” says Laura.
    
For countless couples, this stress would create disaster. Yet David and Laura have built a protective barrier around their roles. “We work in two completely different restaurants,” Laura says. “What we experience in a day is just not comparable.”
    
Helping matters is honesty, “which means we can cut the bullshit,” Laura says. But it’s still difficult because “the work switch never goes off,” David.
    
They spend Sundays and Mondays with their kids, then cut work early on Wednesdays to have dinner, see friends or catch a movie. Still, where does sleep equate into this scenario, especially since they wake up at dawn to prepare their kids for school?
    
“Sleep? Sleep,” Laura says, “is definitely hard to come by.”

Fave date spots: Anissa, Lucali, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Souen, Mas


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Karen and David Waltuck

Dubbing Karen and David Waltuck the elder statesmen of New York’s restaurant couples might be a wild understatement. Since 1978, the twosome has helmed lauded French restaurant Chanterelle, which has garnered enough accolades and stars to populate the Milky Way. They’ve outlasted trends and contemporaries, becoming fixtures in the fine-eating world—even while raising kids Sara, 18, and Jake, 16.

“When we started in the late ’70s, we were one of three husband-and-wife teams that started restaurants cooking French food. Now, 28 years later, of the three, we’re the only ones still in business—and the only ones still married,” David says.

Their longevity secret is simple: “We still like each other,” Karen says.

More importantly, “we’re not totally in each other’s hair,” David says. “She has her realm”—the front of the house—“and I have my realm”—the kitchen, for which he won a 2007 James Beard award as top NYC chef.

“Then again,” Karen counters, “if you want to have a good restaurant and lessen the natural animosity, it’s important to have someone in the dining room sleeping with someone in the kitchen. You can work out a lot of things when you get back to basics.”

Oftentimes, their last sweet nothings muttered before sleep are far from romantic: “Sometimes the last thing David says before he turns out the lights is, ‘Would you please remind me to give you the menu tomorrow?’” Karen says.

A crossing of boundaries? Perhaps. But it’s a successful formula that’s worked for nearly 30 years—and will likely succeed for 30 more.

Fave date spots: Le Bernardin, Peasant, Congee Bowery


ALICIA NOSENZO AND JASON LIEBMAN + DEDE LAHMAN AND NEIL KLEINBERG —>


Photo by Elizabeth Weinberg