Devastating news. This morning my phone rang with news from another Saint Paul culinary legend: Dave Cossetta was gone. Dead at age 70. It was a sudden medical emergency in Rome, where he was reportedly delivering one of Cossetta’s international award-winning panettones to the Pope.
Dave was in Italy for the World Cup of Panettone; I saw him just a couple of weeks ago at the “Panettone Palace,” the custom kitchen built for competing and creating this Italian holiday semi-sweet bread. He was beaming, excited about competing in Milan, and excited to begin cranking out panettone to fill Cossetta on West 7th Street in St. Paul—for Lunds & Byerly’s stores and to ship around the world via their website.
[INSTAGRAM: DeRusha’s video about the panettone contest]
After winning two international awards for the best panettone outside of Europe and a critics’ choice award, his life was over in an instant. Cossetta passed surrounded by family and friends, as he so often was. His wife Gail was there, the talented team from Cossetta, and many friends and families, including fellow St. Paul restaurateur Dan O’Gara.
“The plot couldn’t have been any better for him, going out on a high,” said his lifelong friend Pat Mancini. “I’m pretty speechless; I’ve known the man my whole life.”
“Dave was the fourth generation of his family to carry on what began in 1911 as a small market in St. Paul,” his family writes in a statement. “He built it into a gathering place on West 7th Street where everyone was welcome at the same table, and he never stopped dreaming about what it could become.”
Panettone wasn’t content staying only in St. Paul—the goal was to bring Cossetta to the nation. For more than 15 years, he was obsessed—flying Italian masters to St. Paul to teach and flying his team to Italy to perfect their craft. Years ago, I interviewed Cossetta for a television story, where he shared an insight I’ve never forgotten. In life, you have to do something to make you famous, he told me, and something to make you rich. Cossetta’s Italian Sausage, a critical darling, made them famous and the mostaccioli, a crowd-pleaser, made him rich.
“Above all, Dave loved his family, his city, and the people who walked through his doors,” his family wrote. “We will carry on as Dave would have wanted: together, around the table.” Services are pending. Saint Paul and Minnesota will never be the same.
