Avril BYOB has been a longtime dream for husband and wife team Christian Gatti and April Lisante. The two met in 2003 when April, food editor for the Philadelphia Daily News, was reporting a story about Philadelphia's hottest, most talked-about chefs. Christian, a longtime Philadelphia chef and pastry chef, was one of twelve chefs featured in the story. The two met at the Daily News photo shoot for the story, shook hands, and the rest was history.

April ran the food section at the Daily News for seven years, crafting weekly feature stories, chef profiles and editing columns. But her dream, as a lifelong cook and food-lover, was to have her own restaurant. And Christian was her ultimate match, sharing the same passion and dream.

Christian first fell in love with cooking at age 15, when he took a job as a dishwasher at a local bakery in his hometown of Havertown, Pa. Shoulders down and head low over the basin sink, he often turned and watched bakers make their breads, cookies and cakes. Soon enough, after pestering owners, he was making braided Easter bread in the spring. His passion was born.

Ironically, Christian, a prolific writer, headed to the University of Pittsburgh in 1993 thinking he'd translate his love of food into a food writing career. He studied creative writing and history but it wasn't until he was sitting in a windowsill at University of Pittsburgh reading MFK Fisher's meditational essay about savoring a peach that he realized food was the place to turn to understand life and to celebrate and savor life.

It was also in Pittsburgh where he met his first mentor, the Moroccan and Avignon French-trained chef Driss Boubakri from whom he learned to cook and learned the phrase "With love," which was meant to be the mantra beneath cooking.

In Pittsburgh, Christian worked at and eventually became the head baker at an artisan bakery. He worked at a number of restaurants in Pittsburgh and returned to his hometown of Philadelphia to work at stalwarts such as the socially-conscious, and one of Philadelphia's first farm-to-table restaurants White Dog Café and Old City's City Tavern. The Tavern allowed Christian to combine his love of history and food. There, he realized the deep roots of American cooking and has since devoted himself to resolving America's inferiority complex that all good things in food don't only come from Europe. Working under Tavern's owner Walter Staib, head of Concepts By Staib, Christian helped to open hotels and resorts nationally and internationally, working with menu development and staff training with clientelle such as Benchmark Hotels, Shula's Steakhouse and Sandal's Resorts. It was a priveledge to learn to from Staib, one of the nation's most knowledgeable and internationally-respected chefs.

At Avril, Gatti will combine his classical French training to create a menu that is Southern French meets Northern Italian bistro. Focusing on seafood, upscale savory pastries, homemade pastas and breads, Avril is all about our love, our passion, our devotion......it's about our food.