Donatella Arpaia finds the man of her dreams

        In this town it’s not the women who come and go speaking of Michelangelo. It’s the men. And as her male partners cycle out of restaurant entrepreneur Donatalla Arpaia’s life - first David Burke, with whom she created David Burke and Donatella, and now Michael Psilakis, recently split from Anthos and Mia Dona - it’s all been mostly polite, no accusations, just vague lawyer talk about “going in different directions.”  

       Now with Mia Dona redesigned as a showcase of her mother and aunt’s Puglia and Naples home cooking, you will not find a “name” chef at the range.  But you may find the new man in Donatella’s life at the bar. His name is Davide Torchio and he’s her hairdresser. When the bank wouldn’t give him a loan to set up his own place, Arpaia stepped in as an investor at his studio, 854 Lexington (212 226 2925).

       “Now, no matter what, I have someone to do my hair for the rest of my life.  No one else is allowed to touch my hair,” she says. “He’s an artist.” As Arpaia extends her brand on television and promoting her new cookbook, “Donatella Cooks,” Torchio will be there to fluff her up. “I have my own hairdresser,” she says. “I have extensions.  Everything. He goes wherever I go.”

       I didn’t ask if there was any romantic interest attached.  Who cares?  A master with scissors and a blow dryer you can summon any time seems hot enough to me. Freud asked, “What do women want?”  If he were alive, now he would know.

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