When was courting Gale Gand 15 years ago, Rick Tramonto didn't have the money to spend on such romantic gestures as a dozen roses. But what the apprentice chef lacked in cash he made up for in creativity. Gand, who was toiling with Tramonto at the Strathallan Hotel in Rochester, N.Y., recalls finding carved radish roses in her equipment drawer or a bunch of scallion flowers on her windshield.

These days the couple, who wed in 1988 and have been the proprietors of the successful Brasserie T since 1995, are getting critical bouquets as head chefs of Tru, Chicago's hottest new restaurant. Tramonto, 36, handles main courses, and Gand, 43, crafts desserts for the eatery, which opened last May. Together they snagged three nominations for this year's prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards, which will be presented this May: best new restaurant, best pastry chef and best baking and desserts book {Butter Sugar Flour Eggs). "What they put on the plate makes people love them," says Rich Melman, their Tru co-owner. "Their success is an aphrodisiac."

To earn such adoration, Gand and Tramonto work frantic 14-hour days that often start with horsetrading over the night's menu. "We bounce ideas off each other," Gand says. "Rick goes, 'I have to do lamb.' And I'll say, 'Remember that mustard-crusted leg of lamb from the South of France?' Then he says, 'That was terrific, but it needs a sauce.' And he'll settle on a mushroom-lentil sauce." Tramonto takes the lead in creating the lineup, while Gand plays her pastry starters and desserts off his entrées.

The energetic Gand also adds a dash of tenderizer to the robust, hard-charging Tramonto. "When you look at Gale's side of the kitchen, it's usually a tea party—they're laughing and having fun," says Mark Andelbradt, second in command at Tru. "When you look at Rick's side, it's a football game." Admits Tramonto: "I'm in knives, fire and heat, but if I get stressed out, Gale breaks the ice."

Tramonto picked up his passions early. The only child of Frank, 72, a retired electrician, and school-maintenance worker Gloria, who died in 1999, he grew up in Rochester crazy about food, especially his mother's spaghetti and stuffed calamari. The family's financial woes forced him to drop out of high school at 15 to work first at Wendy's, then in a series of more upscale restaurants. "Cooking saved my life," he says. "There were a lot of sad directions I could have gone in."

The choices for Gand were happier. Growing up in Deerfield, Ill., a Chicago suburb, she was singing folk music by age 12 at state fairs and coffeehouses with her father, Bob, 73, and her brother Gary, 46—both now professional musicians who own music stores in the area. (Her mother, Myrna, a sculptor and homemaker, died seven years ago.) Gand fell in love with cooking in 1978 while working in a vegetarian restaurant and studying art at the Rochester Institute of Technology. (She married a fellow student in 1977, but they separated eight years later.) By 1985, Gand was pastry chef at the Strathal-lan when she met the 21:year-old Tramonto, who feigned a deep interest in pies and cakes in order to get close to her. "He would call me every couple of nights in a panic over some [made-up] pastry crisis," says Gand, but she at first resisted the overtures of the apprentice, who was seven years her junior. On their first date, she took him to dinner and sealed his love by ordering every dessert on the menu. "She did exactly what I would have liked to do but was too embarrassed," Tramonto recalls. After Rochester, the couple worked in New York City and London before a homesick Gand suggested Chicago, where they moved in 1987. Eight years later they opened Brasserie T.

Running two restaurants is a soup-to-nuts enterprise, but Gand and Tramonto alternate mornings looking after their 3-year-old son Giorgio. "Being a mother is such a privilege, but it's important for Gio to know women work and have careers," says Gand, who has launched a brand of root beer and, come fall, will serve as host of a daily cooking show that she hopes will reach a national audience. During their rare free time (like Sunday family night), the couple try to stay out of the kitchen in their contemporary Riverwoods, Ill., home, which features neither copper saucepans nor a Sub-Zero refrigerator. "We pick our friends," says Gand, "on the basis of whether they'll cook for us."

Russell Scott Smith
Barbara Sandler in Chicago