'Suicide Chef'' Had Secret Girlfriend at Restaurant
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(FOX)
The married reality-show restaurateur whose body was found floating in the Hudson River had developed a taste for his pastry chef, sources said yesterday.
Joseph Cerniglia, who was warned by TV chef Gordan Ramsay in a 2007 episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" that his debt-ridden eatery was "about to swim down the Hudson," eerily jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge last week.
The 39-year-old chef and owner of Campania was carrying on a sweet romance with Jessica Marotta, his much younger, cookie-cutting cutie, before he took the fatal plunge, sources told The Post.
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"They loved each other very much," said the pastry chef's mom, Ana Marotta.
"My daughter is devastated," Ana said about Jessica, who had risen from waitress to co-owner of Cerniglia's Campania restaurant in Fair Lawn, NJ.
The striking brunette cannoli-stuffer Marotta, 27, was too upset to speak to a reporter yesterday after spending time with Cerniglia's mother.
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The late, handsome head chef had three young sons with his wife, Melissa.