About Christa & Davide
Davide and Christa are truly a match made in restaurant heaven. Born and raised in Milan, Davide attended culinary school in Italy before traveling and cooking in fine restaurants around Europe and the US. Christa was born and raised in a big Italian-American family in Baltimore, where the preparation and appreciation of food was a big part of her upbringing. They met while working at Baltimore’s premier Italian restaurant “Sotto Sopra”, where Davide was the pasta chef and Christa worked the front of the house.
Says Christa: “We were living and working in Milan in 2004 (Davide was the Chef, I was the Manager), when a cousin told us about a vacant restaurant space she had seen in this beautiful Maine coast village she had visited for a wedding. Several phone calls later, we left our jobs in Milan and flew, on a wing and a prayer, back to the States for the opportunity to open our own restaurant for the first time.”
They opened Ports of Italy in May of 2004 and have been going strong ever since. The seasonal nature of the community means that they began opening for summers only, but the support (and demands!) of the local community have caused them to lengthen their opening time to include a few more weeks each year. You can now find Ports of Italy open from April through October, for sure…and even a few weeks longer if all goes well!