Il nuovo Perugino

The taste of his native Umbria and the wise teachings of a mother merged in Franco Seccarelli, so that when he crossed the Atlantic to establish his own restaurant in Puerto Rico, he was already endowed with the qualities of a great chef. "My father and mother lived in that house and I spent my childhood there," Franco said. "With the olive trees surrounding the house and the 200 more that I planted, soon I'll be producing olive oil." That place in Umbria, high in the hills where Francis of Assisi and his monks had walked, seemed wrought from a canvas of Giotto or II Perugino. I understand why Franco, searching for a name for his restaurant in that far off Caribbean island, would think of II Perugino.