A star chef is down to earth (Part 1)

January 7, 7:19 PMUpstate NY Restaurant ExaminerBill Dowd

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ALBANY, NY -- Yono Purnomo (right) is, to put it politely, a collector. He won't even quibble with the term packrat.

Especially when his business partner and wife, Donna, is within earshot.

It's not a selfish thing, however. Widjiono "Yono" Purnomo, born into very modest financial circumstances on the Indonesian island of Java, and Donna, who hails from Amsterdam, Montgomery County, are the picture of benevolence. When there's a local fundraising event involving food, it is a rarity not to see representation from their two restaurants -- Yono's and dp: An American Brasserie, co-located at the Hampton Inn & Suites in downtown Albany since 2006. They estimate 40 such events annually.

"We don't mind doing it," says the Certified Executive Chef as he busily juggles several sautépans while preparing an Indonesian luncheon for six in the kitchen of his North Colonie home. "This country has been good to me, and this community has been good to our whole family."

Their philanthropy is not limited to this area. After touring his native country in 2007 and seeing the lingering devastation from the 2004 tsunami that had an epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, killing more than 225,000 people in 11 countries, he was deeply troubled.

When he speaks of the horror, this man known for his big, booming laugh and broad, toothy smile, looks infinitely sad.

"It is almost too much to take in," he says quietly, "how entire families, even villages and towns, were swept away in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of thousands of people gone without warning. I couldn't take it. I cut my visit short there and wanted to get away to try to think of at least some small way to help."

The Purnomos wound up providing seed money and ongoing efforts to create a scholarship fund    for Indonesian youths unable to get trade training. The endowment will assure an ongoing supply of funds from the interest.

Through all the years, the Purnomos have called their modest yellow Cape Cod house home. They bought it in 1980 when it was the only structure in that slice of suburban Colonie.

"I guess we collect neighbors, too," Yono says with a chuckle. "There wasn't much but mud when we moved here. Now look at it." A typically suburban development neighborhood has grown up around the Purnomos even as they changed the house by adding an in-law apartment for Donna's father, shifting a garage, and handling other projects.

The Purnomos met when he was working on a Holland American cruise ship and she was a passenger. They exchanged glances one evening while he was tending bar. The next evening he magically was the waiter assigned to her table.

A few months later, tired of being separated by the travel involved in his job -- he has visited more than 100 countries -- Yono made a transoceanic phone call that changed everything.

"It was the middle of the night and the phone woke me up," Donna recalls. "It was Yono, calling -- collect! --  from the other side of the world, telling me we should get married. Who could refuse that?"

They married in January 1977, a union that produced son Dominick, 27, and daughter Alexondra, 26.

(Note: Bottom photo by Suzanne Kawola of Play of Light, Troy)

[Tomorrow: Yono's becomes a family enterprise.]