Giusto restaurant opens in Newport

Gail Ciampa | The Providence Journal | September 15, 2020

NEWPORT

It’s the quintessential restaurant story. Not.

Teen starts work at a pizzeria. Goes to JWU to study but ends up in Italy on an externship. Stays three years. Returns to U.S. for job at award-winning NYC restaurant. Leaves to open Paris bistro. After a year, moves to Boston to open what would become an award-winning restaurant. Marries high school sweetheart. Has baby boy. Opens restaurant in Newport. And lives happily ever after.

No one knows about that last part, but why not? Chef Kevin O’Donnell has done extraordinary things with apparent ease.

Even a pandemic hasn’t stopped his opening of Giusto last week at the new Hammett’s Hotel at 4 Commercial Wharf in Newport.

Talking to the chef, and asking him to recount his nearly two-decade career, there are a lot of “as opportunities arose” expressed.

“I’m happy to be home back in Rhode Island,” he said.

O’Donnell’s father, Edward, grew up in the Fifth Ward, so he considers this a homecoming, even though the chef was raised in North Kingstown.

He brings what he calls “Freestyle Italian” to Giusto, which has water views and an expansive patio with close to 100 seats alongside indoor dining for another 78.

The space was designed Libby Slader with a combination of high-top tables, Hollywood-style booths, intimate banquets, bar seating, and a 14-person private dining room.

The hotel’s Deck at Hammett’s offers a Satellite Giusto Bar from which drinks and snacks are served to hotel guests and the public as space allows in the 35 seats.

Construction on Giusto started in April, during the thick of the shutdown, and they missed their July 4 opening date.

“Things that could have gone off, didn’t,” he said. Still, “it’s been quite the ride.

O’Donnell assembled his Giusto team.

In the kitchen he’s joined by his longtime friend, executive chef Kyle Stamps, formerly of The Mooring and 22 Bowen’s.

The general manager and beverage director is Aaron Edwards. O’Donnell considers him a mentor, having worked for him at the former Trattoria del Corso in East Greenwich.

O’Donnell and Edwards worked together to create a 100-percent Italian wine list, save for Champagne. They favored some natural biodynamic producers and some lesser-known varietals that bring something unique to the restaurant.

“There’s no Pinot Grigio on the wine list, but instead there is Soave Classico from the Veneto,” made from Garganega grapes.

Instead of Sauvignon Blanc, there’s the charming Italian white wine Vermentino.

The beer list is full of local drafts from Rhode Island and New England.

The food was also created to evoke the classics, but with a twist.

The calamari is fried, but squid ink is added to the tempura batter. It brings flavors of umami to the dish. O’Donnell calls it a brighter version of the usual peppers and sauce.

Fake caprese is another unique dish that starts not with tomatoes but with heirloom melons in horseradish vinegar. It makes for a sweet-and-sour flavor and is finished with stracciatella, which O’Donnell calls the best part of a burrata.

“For a tip of the hat to Rhode Island there are local littlenecks,” O’Donnell said. They are prepared with guanciale, white wine, potato puree and mascarpone. But for the difference, it’s served not with grilled bread but with a roasted garlic doughboy that looks sweet but has a tang.

Stuffies and chowder are also part of his locally inspired menu.

O’Donnell wants the menu to set the tone for a fun, playful dining experience. Though Giusto is in a hotel, he doesn’t want it to be a tourist restaurant.

“I want it to be a destination restaurant for those in Providence, but I hope Newporters will make it their regular spot,” he said.

How did he get here?

O’Donnell said he came from a family of good cooks. He began cooking as a teen 18 years ago, with chef Walter Slater (now at 22 Bowen’s) at Junction Pizzeria in North Kingstown. He called Slater his first mentor, and one who encouraged him to go to Johnson & Wales University.

During his first year at school, he went off to an externship in Italy with chef Lorenzo Polegri at Ristorante Zeppelin in Orvieto. He stayed for almost three years and learned not just how to cook freestyle Italian, but about farming, making wine and producing olive oil. He also met his friend and future business partner in SRV in Boston, Michael Lombardi.

He never went back to school, realizing how much he could learn on the job.

His next stop was at Del Posto in New York City working with chef Mark Ladner. Here O’Donnell saw how to take a peasant dish and elevate it. He worked with a new caliber of chefs and was promoted to sous chef.

“Literally 2½ weeks later I put my notice in,” he said. Ladner told him he was out of his mind.

But O’Donnell had gotten a call to open L’Office in Paris and he had to accept the challenge.

He had no idea how to cook French. But he found a restaurant industry that was amazing. Other chefs and restaurateurs welcomed him into the fold and told him what purveyors to use.

He served a three-course bistro menu that he build by asking his servers and staff about the dishes their mothers made for them.

“I learned on the fly,” he said. “I did the interpretations of French dishes, with Italian flair and American sensibilities.”

A year later he and his friend Lombardi were opening SRV in Boston and garnering a Best New Restaurant nomination from the James Beard Foundation Awards for their Venetian-inspired food.

He married his high school sweetheart, Sarah Bellemore, and knew he had to return home to open a restaurant. In December, their son Ray was born.

“I really wanted to create a restaurant here that is fun and people are relaxed from the start. We want to create experiences that people might not have had before.”

And he wants to keep it affordable, saying, “We have truffles as a bar snack for $5.”

Any changes now will be on his menu with the seasons.

Learn more at giustonewport.com.