Love at First BiteMeet Michael and Donna, the too cute couple living the ultimate hipster foodie dream. He's a co-owner of the Meatball Shop, she's a Danish model who makes homemade ice cream. The combination? Just delicious.

Model behavior: The tattooed and scruffy Michael Chernow has met his match in the leggy Danish beauty Donna Hemmingsen Chernow.

 It's a brisk afternoon on the Lower East Side, but at the Meatball Shop on Stanton Street, its open kitchen, packed with dudes who look like they might be pro skateboarders on the side, is heating up.

Michael Chernow, 30, who co-owns the laid-back hot spot with chef Daniel Holzman, bustles about the restaurant setting tables for the evening's service while fielding calls about the soon-to-open Bedford Avenue spin-off in Williamsburg. Michael's wife, Donna Hemmingsen Chernow, a Danish-born model with rippling brown hair and enviable cheekbones, stops in and gives him a kiss. It's hard not to think this guy has some pretty great karma.

Even better? Donna, who just touched down from three weeks in Paris, London and Lanzarote, Spain, for photo shoots, is an Institute of Culinary Education–trained pastry chef who interned at Le Bernardin and helped develop the dessert menu for the Meatball Shop. The pair met six years ago, when Donna walked into East Village Italian resto Frank, where Michael bartended. He asked her out on a date, and on the eve of her birthday the pair dined on oysters and bone marrow at Blue Ribbon, followed by cake at midnight. Two years later, the irritatingly handsome duo were married. Asked what makes their relationship work, Michael says, "We have the crazy sweet tooth of all time between us."

Foodies of love: Michael and Donna fell in love over bone marrow at Blue Ribbon. Just dishy!

Since the Meatball Shop opened in February 2010, with its laddish slogan, "We Make Balls," Michael and his co-owner Dan have been riding a wave of meatball madness, with appearances on shows like Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Certainly, part of the allure is that they're good-looking guys with badass tattoos. But there's also the simple appeal of their business formula: Guests get menus with pens and circle their meatball choices from a selection of beef, chicken and veggie, as well as daily specials like rabbit. Dessert is the sort of comfort fare that makes you feel like a kid: chocolate ice-cream floats and peanut-butter cookie sandwiches filled with scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Though the twentysomething Donna no longer works at the restaurant (juggling modeling gigs with churning ice cream is a tall order), she's the dessert queen of their Williamsburg home and is thinking of someday opening a bakery.

But before you decide it's all too ideal, the couple admit they don't survive solely on red meat and sweet treats. "It would be a healthy bakery," laughs Donna, a devoted gym bunny, "probably vegan, using whole wheat. When I bake at home, it's always on the healthy side."

The Meatball Shop's industrial-chic dining room.

Michael is health-mad, too. He loves the martial-arts practice of muay Thai and regularly runs in races. "I eat a lot of veggie meatballs," he says.

But calorie-packed or not, the meatball trend shows no sign of letting up. "Meat­balls are like the Yankees," says Michael. "They don't go out of style."