There’s no chicken parm at Don Luigi. No large bowls of pasta, no laminated menu to flip through, no rush to clear the table for the next reservation. Upon arrival, diners are asked, “How many courses would you like?” From there, chef and owner Luigi Di Iorio crafts each plate based on what looked best at the market that morning, the mood in the room and whatever idea strikes him.

On a recent night, that meant a mushroom velouté perfumed with thyme and coffee, paired with duck breast and a reduction of Barolo and teriyaki. “I love dishes that seem simple, because those are the ones that really test a chef,” Di Iorio says. “I want every bite to tell a story and leave a memory.”

Don Luigi’s format is closer to an omakase counter (a Japanese tradition where the chef chooses the dishes) than a traditional trattoria, except the focus is Southern Italy, shaped by Di Iorio’s childhood on the island of Ischia and years cooking in Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe. “I do not like having 20 dishes sitting ready every day,” Di Iorio says. “I prefer cooking fewer things, but making them fresh and special.”

The restaurant, which opened in November 2025 on North Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota, seats only a handful of tables a night by design. Once a guest sits down, the table is theirs for the evening. “We don’t turn tables here because dinner should not feel stressful,” Di Iorio says. “It should feel like a conversation, with wine, emotion and memory.”

You can order anywhere from three courses up to seven, with prices from $35 to $150, depending on how much food and wine you want. Lower course counts skip wine pairings; the higher tiers, five courses and up, include curated pairings chosen by the chef. 

Before any of it begins, guests are asked about allergies, intolerances and preferences, and the kitchen creates the night’s progression around them. “The goal is not simply to remove an ingredient,” Di Iorio says, “but to create a menu with the same taste, balance and emotion. Everyone should be able to live the same experience at the table.” The structure mirrors how Di Iorio was taught to cook, working with what’s in front of him, rather than locking into a fixed plan in advance.

The wine list, mostly Italian with room for a few French and international bottles, is curated by Di Iorio. “I don’t choose a wine because it is famous,” he says. “Every bottle on the list has a precise reason to be there.”

Di Iorio started as a dishwasher at age 13, in a small restaurant near his family’s home on Ischia. He watched the line cooks whenever he had a free second. Eventually, the owner brought him in for morning prep, and not long after, his uncle, Giuseppe, the chef at a large luxury hotel on the island, called him into the kitchen.

“Because I was his nephew, he was harder on me than everybody else,” Di Iorio remembers. “If I stood still for one second, he yelled. If I finished one task, he sent me to another station. It was like the military.”

From there, Di Iorio left school to chase experience across Europe: Pompeii, Cortina, France, Switzerland, Rome, Siena, Chamonix, Verbier, often working for little or no pay, only to learn from chefs he admired. In Paris, working at a Michelin-starred restaurant, money was so tight he sometimes slept beside the flour sacks rather than pay for a room, then let staff think he had arrived early for service.

That résumé led him to a private chef role for Gisela Rich, of the Martini winemaking family, cooking for clients in St. Moritz and Ibiza, including, at various points, Julio Iglesias and Naomi Campbell. But Di Iorio notes that his most formative food memories are from home, butchering pigs with his family and using every part for sausage and prosciutto. “That taught me respect for ingredients,” he says. “If you really understand ingredients, you can take something humble and make it incredible.”

Di Iorio landed in Sarasota almost by accident, he says, and fell for the city immediately. What he saw was a place with potential, still untouched by the kind of Italian cooking he wanted to bring.

“In most restaurants, Italian food still means chicken Parmesan and meatballs,” he says. “I did not want to say that style of cooking was wrong. I wanted to show that Italian gastronomy has much more to offer.”

His team remains small on purpose. One cook works alongside Di Iorio in the kitchen, and two people run the dining room, anchored by Gabrielly, the hostess, server and first face guests see when they walk in. This fall, a sommelier and a pastry chef joined the staff.

And Di Iorio isn’t finished. He plans to launch a breakfast-and-lunch concept with his partner, Holly, who runs a Pilates studio, built around lighter, health-minded cooking that doesn’t sacrifice flavor. Beyond that is a bigger dream: a restaurant that can chase a Michelin star. He won’t say more than that.

“It’s partly strategy, partly superstition. After all, I am Italian,” he says. “Dreams should be built with work first, and only told about after.”

Don Luigi | 1272 N. Palm Ave, Sarasota, (941) 366-7638, donluigisrq.com