Venetian-born chef Fabrizio Aielli and his wife, Ingrid, were stars of the Washington, D.C. restaurant scene. In 1995, after cooking at Roberto Donna’s acclaimed Galileo, Aielli opened Goldoni, named for Carlo Goldoni, the great 18th-century Venetian playwright and librettist. The Aiellis moved the restaurant and renamed it Osteria Goldoni in 1998, and then in 1999 launched the more ambitious Teatro Goldoni. They would probably still be there today—Fabrizio in the kitchen (he’s very much a hands-on chef) and Ingrid running the dining room with energy and charm—if a friend hadn’t invited them to take a brief vacation in Naples. The one in Florida. They fell in love with the place, with its climate, its people, its possibilities—and in the fall of 2007, to the shock and almost certainly great disappointment of a large segment of the local dining public, they sold out of D.C. and moved to Naples full time, with plans to open something new and different.
That establishment, called Sea Salt, debuted in late November in the town’s posh-casual Third Street business district. It’s a big place, open to the street, with a terrace and a bar (including bar tables) up front, a slightly more formal dining room further back, a kitchen that’s truly open (there is no wall between it and the nearest tables), a small specialty food market, and a small café. With floors of light wood and tile and walls of glass and limestone, the interior (by designer Griz Dwight) combines a breezy, beachy feel with a kind of offhanded elegance.
The menu, as befits the laid-back tone of the restaurant’s “old Naples” neighborhood (there are three Tommy Bahama shops and a Tommy Bahama bar and restaurant within a few steps of the place) adapts nicely to different moods. Snackers can choose from a nice selection of cheeses and cured meats, oysters, and several kinds of crudo and carpaccio; slightly more substantial snacks include a Kobe beef burger with eggplant and a fried egg, and a basket of Venetian-quality fried oysters, shrimp, and squid. (Sea salts of many kinds, not surprisingly, are both served and sold.) Or diners can settle in for a serious meal.
Aielli stresses that, unlike his Goldonis, Sea Salt is not an Italian restaurant. Nonetheless, he does offer a handful of pasta and rice dishes, and the centerpiece of the menu is a daily selection of simply grilled fresh fish—local and also from Hawaii and the East Coast—that is very much in the Italian spirit. There are a few hearty meat dishes, too, including a bone-in ribeye and a roasted Berkshire Kurobuta pork rack, which will probably appeal greatly to diners when Naples plunges into winter and daytime temperatures sometimes sink below 70 degrees. Incidentally, Aielli makes some of the best “home fried” potatoes (in effect, French fries) around, including a variation lightly moistened with foie gras fat and dusted with cacao nibs and bacon-chive salt. This may sound like ill-advised post-Adrià experimentation, but turns out to be simply brilliant—accessible and irresistible.
Sea Salt 1186 3rd St. S., Naples, FL (239-434-7258; seasaltnaples.com)
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