When Lisabet Summa and her partners at Big Time Restaurant Group opened Elisabetta’s in downtown Delray Beach in the summer of 2019, she took inspiration from her travels in Italy and her monumental cookbook collection. She tapped into the heritage of her Italian father, whose wish of naming her Elisabetta at birth was dashed by more Americanized minds in the family.
At the time, Summa knew opening any fine-dining spot during the off-season had its challenges in a seasonally driven area. But now, with the opening Tuesday of a second Elisabetta’s restaurant in downtown West Palm Beach, those challenges seem quaint. Leading up to this new debut, her thoughts were consumed by matters more timely than culinary inspiration.
What a difference 18 months and a pandemic make.
“Everything is different because of COVID — the whole thing has turned the industry on its head,” says Summa, who is Big Time’s corporate culinary director, leading the kitchens at the group’s seven restaurant concepts. (They are City Cellar, Rocco’s Tacos, Louie Bossi’s, City Oyster, Grease, Big City Tavern and Elisabetta’s.)
The striking, new Elisabetta’s restaurant on the downtown waterfront is as much an act of defiance as it is a new business venture. There were days when Summa wondered how it would come together at such a difficult time.
“It’s been a very emotional experience, working through this,” says Summa. But after initial layoffs, the group’s more than 1,600 staffers are back, she says. “And we’re hiring like crazy.”
Despite the coronavirus crisis and its severe impact on the restaurant industry across the country, Summa and partners Todd Herbst and Bill Watson doubled-down on their long-standing plans to open the second Elisabetta’s.
It would be no small feat. The sprawling, 10,000-square-foot restaurant perched on a prime corner of the downtown waterfront sports a multi-level patio, retro gazebos, a soaring fireplace, a full-size bocce court and other luxe amenities. (Think outdoor pizza oven and vintage gelato cart.)
“Here we were, building a restaurant in the middle of a pandemic. It felt unprecedented. It felt like everything should stop. But the world doesn’t work like that,” she says. “I feel like I held my breath so many nights, and then it was like ‘Field of Dreams’ — if we build it, they will come, right?”
That’s trademark Summa. She prefers to focus on silver-lining details like how the weather in South Florida makes year-round outdoor dining possible — a fortunate thing at a time when customers clamor for patio seating.
“Who would have thought that we’d be the lucky ones?” she says.
With nearly half of its entire seating capacity scattered outdoors, beneath a covered patio, Elisabetta’s maximizes on the al fresco option. The restaurant can accommodate 150 seats outside.
That said, getting the restaurant ready for its debut met some pandemic-related setbacks. Shipping delays and short supplies slowed the arrival of an industrial European mixer, a vital appliance for Elisabetta’s scratch kitchen. The machine can mix 400 pounds of dough at a time, a godsend for a restaurant that makes all of its bread, pasta and pizza dough onsite. Summa had to swap in a much smaller mixer for the job and kept her fingers crossed that processing just 50 pounds of dough at a time would be a temporary thing.
She worried about the restaurant’s three Neapolitan wood-fire pizza ovens, which are constructed with Italian volcanic soil. Would they arrive in time? Luckily, they did.
As for all the pandemic safety precautions that had to be set in place, the restaurant group formalized them months ago for its multiple concepts. The new Elisabetta’s would reap the benefits of those 10 months of practice.
Summa says that despite the new layers of procedures imposed by the pandemic, she continues to connect with the original inspirations for the restaurant. She replays memories of the Italy trip she and Elisabetta executive chef Andris Salmanis made after the Delray location opened in July 2019. They traveled from Rome to Sicily.
“Sicily was amazing. In some ways, it was like being in South Florida. I thought there could be a good comparison to our climate and seasonal ingredients. And I wanted Andris to experience Roman cuisine,” Summa says.
![Starter bite: prosciutto and burrata on toast is offered at Elisabetta's restaurant. [Photo by Christopher Summa/TBC Media]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/01/11/NPPP/3003b8d4-22a9-4608-b77f-b595dc2ac3e2-ElisabettasBurrataProsciut.JPG?width=660&height=441&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
The focus of the trip was to highlight the importance of scratch-made dishes and handmade ingredients.
“Everything we do at the restaurants is what you might call artisanal, from our breads to our pastas to our house-cured salumi. I wanted him to experience this. It takes an extraordinary chef to handle all of these components and I know he will continue to do so,” she says.
Earlier memories take her to the planning stages of the first Elisabetta’s, to the time when she doted on details like finding the perfect ceramic pattern for the restaurant’s plates. She worked with a prominent London textile designer on creating a palette of colors that conjured the Italy of her memories.
Those days seem forever ago. But what has not changed is her approach to the cuisine, emphasizing ingredients in the service of classics.
“Our restaurant is really an homage to the traditional, with a solid core menu of dishes that are familiar and well loved. It’s not trying to be too far-flung from the rich heritage of Italian food,” says Summa.
![Wood-grilled ribeye steak at Elisabetta's restaurant. [Photo by Christopher Summa/TBC Media]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/01/11/NPPP/2d951aec-56d4-4725-8934-02ee526c6f3b-ElisabettasRibeye.JPG?width=660&height=441&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Nobody in Elisabetta’s kitchen is trying to jazz up Italian favorites, and that’s the point, says Summa.
“It’s not a restaurant for a chef to be innovative,” she says.
On the menu, this translates to a wide-ranging selection of trattoria options: a variety of wood-fired pizzas, long and short pasta dishes, meats and fish cooked on a wood-burning grill (including bone-in steaks that are dry-aged in-house), salads and antipasti, a salumi and cheese bar, scratch-made gelati and other sweets.
In addition to pouring some 70 wines by the glass and offering a wine list that includes 400 wines by the bottle, there’s a full cocktail bar.
![Linguine alle vongole (clam sauce) is served at Elisabetta's restaurant. [Photo by Christopher Summa/TBC Media]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/01/11/NPPP/460c70af-4d1e-4173-92a2-deeb3fd81307-ElisabettasVongole.JPG?width=660&height=441&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
In a conventional high season, the restaurant’s bells and whistles would be enough to pack the place from the start. But Summa knows there’s nothing conventional about this dining season. Still, she believes there’s reason to hope the buzzy restaurant days will return.
“People are making predictions for a post-pandemic world and, certainly, I can see how it can change the landscape of office life. But as far as restaurants go, I really think people will be clamoring to get into restaurants,” she says. “There’s so much to miss about them — the conviviality of a shared meal, the happenstance of conversations. I believe restaurants are here to stay.”
Elisabetta’s
- Opening dates: Debuted Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021 at 5 p.m. for dinner; weekend brunch starts Saturday, Jan. 16; lunch service begins Monday, Jan. 18.
- Location: 185 Banyan Blvd., in downtown West Palm Beach, by the waterfront
- Reservations and online ordering: Reservations are accepted via OpenTable.com and can be accessed via Elisabettas.com, which offers an online ordering tab
- Menu: A variety of wood-fired pizzas, house-made pasta dishes, meats and fish cooked on a wood-burning grill, including dry-aged, bone-in steaks, salads and antipasti, house-cured meats and cheeses, homemade gelato and other sweets.
- Full bar: 70 wines by the glass, 400 wines by the bottle, craft beers, craft cocktail bar.
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