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RICK TRAMONTO and Gale Gand are a masterful culinary duo. For 25 years, the Chicago pair has made beautiful meals together, most notably at top-flight eatery Tru, where customers dine on Tramonto's sumptuous main courses and Gand's delicate desserts.

But while they make magic in the kitchen, the same is not true at home: The once-happily-married chefs have been divorced since 2000, a year after they opened Tru. Despite the breakup, their business has thrived, and the former husband-and-wife team (who remain amicable) are currently opening four new restaurants in suburban Chicago.

"We are the poster children for a divorced couple who can still work together," says Gand. "People come to us and ask for advice as they are splitting up, and they marvel."

Most couples who start a business together but wind up divorcing are used to bitter endings, not the sweet times that Tramonto and Gand are enjoying. About 1.2 million husband-and-wife teams run a business together, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. And when love fails, the business often does, too, with many ex-spouses liquidating their shared endeavor.

Yet in some cases, as the restaurateurs' story illustrates, the passion for the business can supplant the passion the partners once had for each other. Some divorce experts say that shouldn't be so unusual. Especially as more soon-to-be-ex-spouses try the "collaborative" approach — which focuses on new and amicable ways to resolve disputes — running a business together post-divorce emerges as a distinct possibility.

"We ask ex-spouses to be parenting partners; it only makes sense, on a financial level, to at least let the couple explore the option of being business partners," says Susan Hansen, a family-law attorney in Milwaukee who serves as president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. "If you can co-parent — and we have that as a reasonable expectation — you should be able to co-own a business."

Debi Davis was an early, unwitting proponent of the idea. In 1991, she started nutritional-supplement company Fit America with husband Byron in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. A year later, they divorced. And then they spent the next 14 years growing the business together.

"It initially started out as survival," says Davis, of their unusual arrangement. The couple, strapped for cash because of a previous business failure, started Fit America when their children were nine months and five years old. "We had two kids — because of that we needed to stay focused and do what was right for the family."

Their business not only survived but took off. By 1997, it was bringing in close to $45 million in sales. (Byron left the company last year to explore new options.) Davis says it worked because the two "were great partners." Her ex-husband's expertise was marketing and finance, while she was adept at operational management. "We really brought two different aspects of the business together," she says, "although we personally wanted different things out of life."

Sticking together as business partners when you've decided to untie the knot is rare.

Most divorce experts recommend that ex-spouses explore other options first:

One spouse could buy the other out. That's an especially good choice if one spouse started the business, or is more passionate about it.

Sell it, and divvy up the profits. Often, it's tough to unload a small business, but if the company operates smoothly and profitably, then it's possible to find a buyer.

Split it. Generally, this only works if the company is large enough to have separate units that can be spun off from one another.

Speed up the succession plan. Family businesses often name children as successors; a divorcing couple with adult children may be able to choose this option.

Liquidate the business. It may not be pretty, but liquidation allows both parties to walk away and start over on their own.

Couples who decide to divorce each other but not the business need to do careful planning, experts advise. It's especially critical to have a partnership agreement in place, which will spell out each other's responsibilities and outline what happens if the business partnership (like the marriage) sours.

The ex-spouses may want to consult a mediator or even a therapist, who can advise them on how to resolve conflicts. And, bottom line, the arrangement won't work if the two can't get along. "They have to have the ability to communicate, and there has to be some reasonable degree of trust and respect," says IACP's Hansen.

Clients, she says, were often confused. "People would say, 'Are you guys divorced?' and I'd say, 'Yes,'" she says. "Byron would look at me and say, 'We are? I didn't get the memo!' That was his standard line."

Most ex-spouses don't enjoy such camaraderie — which is why divorce lawyers usually don't recommend that they try to run a business together. "I've been doing this for 20 years," says Lee Rosen, a certified family-law specialist and president of divorce firm Rosen Law Firm in Raleigh, N.C. "And I don't think it normally works."

He's seen couples attempt to work together, post-divorce, usually because the company's revenues support the family and both partners are critical to its success. And he's watched those efforts fail. "The same issues that were happening in the marriage were continuing to happen in the office," he says.

Also, some divorcing couples forget to be realistic. "When people think they are going to do this, they haven't considered dating," he adds. "The minute that starts happening, it's like 'Oh, we didn't think of this.'"

In the most unpleasant of situations, ex-spouses will continue in the business together because neither wants to give up control. "The worst-case scenario is kind of a 'War of the Roses' and they both have too much invested to get out, so it's not a strategic relationship but a spiteful sort of thing," says Ira Bryck, director of the University of Massachusetts Family Business Center in Amherst, Mass. "The real ugliness there is they can draw employees into taking sides, and even customers into taking sides."

For that reason, restaurateurs Tramonto and Gand hid their breakup from their 100-member staff for the first six months. "We didn't want to scare them," she explains. "We didn't want our clients to think the restaurant was going to close."

Why did they decide to stick together? "We were way better business partners and co-chefs than anything else," Tramonto says. "It was natural, and I think that's why it worked." The former spouses also knew they would always be linked by their son Gio, who's now 10. Running a successful business is perhaps "the new and improved version of staying together for the kids," Gand says.

Ultimately, the former couple's shared history in the restaurant business and a mutual respect for one another kept them together. Both have remarried and had children with new spouses. But at work, their long partnership still produces delicious results.

"Last night, he had me taste his Brussels sprouts with béarnaise sauce — it was great," Gand says. "He just tasted the tuna fish sandwich from my new coffee bar, and I could tell from his eyes that it wasn't perfect. He can zero in on the thing that I'm missing." After so many years together, "we can read each other's minds," she says. "And she totally understands what I'm looking for, without me having to say it," Tramonto adds.