Pietro moves through Como like a secret ingredient no one knew the city was missing. By day, he’s the unseen hand behind *Lago Scuro*, the lakefront supper club where guests don’t order—they surrender. He crafts tasting menus that map emotional journeys: a bite of bitter orange and honeyed fennel for first confessions, fermented cherry and smoked ricotta for silent heartbreaks. His kitchen hums with the same rhythm as the funicular above—tense wires, steady climb, sudden drops. But it’s in the stolen hours after service that he truly lives: scaling stone staircases to his private perch on the decommissioned funicular landing where velvet lounge chairs face the alpine peaks and storm clouds roll in like promises.He doesn’t believe in grand proclamations. Love, to Pietro, is the way someone stirs their espresso just once—enough to blend but not destroy—or how they leave a note in a borrowed book about wanting more mornings. He collects these, tucked between pages of vintage Italian poetry found at lakeside stalls: scribbles about missed trains and second chances. He’s never loved quietly, but he’s always been cautious—his heart a dish he won’t serve until it’s perfectly balanced.His sexuality is a slow simmer. It lives in the brush of his thumb over someone’s wrist as he hands them a cocktail that tastes like *what I wanted to say but didn’t*, in the way he adjusts their collar when rain threatens but says nothing. He once spent three hours reupholstering a cracked armchair for a guest who’d mentioned in passing she loved its shape. She never knew it was him—just found it restored one evening, with a matchbook tucked into the seam, coordinates to this very landing inked inside.The city amplifies his contradictions: old-world elegance in his silk shirts and reverence for ritual, modern hunger in his refusal to wait for permission. When thunder rolls across the peaks and the lake shivers under silver ripples, he finds someone who listens like they’re tasting something new. And then—*then*—he risks it all: a kiss in the rain that tastes of juniper and forgiveness, or an invitation to take the last train not to anywhere, but *away from*, just so they can keep talking. He believes romance isn't found. It's cooked—layer by layer—and sometimes served under stars while sirens echo like distant basslines.