In the Kitchen: Chef Kevin O’Donnell of Giusto and Mother Pizzeria

I’ve been interviewing chef Kevin O’Donnell for the past six years, from when he left award-winning restaurant SRV that he co-founded in Boston’s South End to his Rhode Island homecoming. His vision for Giusto in Newport began in 2019 with a raw space built from the ground up in tandem with the creation of Hammetts Hotel on the newly created wharf bearing the same name.

Amid the typical challenges of opening a new restaurant — building delays, cash flow concerns, staffing, training, cultivating vendor relationships – O’Donnell was dealt an unforeseeable blow: a global pandemic. Undeterred, Giusto, Italian for “just right,” opened in September 2020. And everything about Giusto, including its launch’s unenviable timing, has proved to be just that.

Raised in North Kingstown, O’Donnell went to Johnson & Wales where an internship brought him to Orvieto, an ancient Italian city between Rome and Florence. There he trained in the art of Umbrian cooking under Chef Lorenzo Polegri, learning the profound impact local foodways can have on the plate. Young and eager to master Italian cuisine, he later moved to the country to cook with Polegri full time, using his few off days to explore the signature dishes of other regions. Though radically different culinary approaches in each, he discovered a throughline: clean, simple meals made with local, seasonal ingredients that let rich, authentic flavors shine through.

A rare chance to work under Michelin-starred chef Mark Ladner at Del Posto in New York City brought O’Donnell back stateside. He later moved to Paris, where he opened a L’Office bistro as executive chef, before his pre-Newport years at Boston’s iconic Salty Pig and SRV.

When he opened Giusto, the restaurant’s tagline, “freestyle Italian,” was a nod (or better, an explainer) that diners should not expect red sauce-smothered chicken parm, cheesy fettuccini alfredo, or other widely Americanized Italian dishes. Instead, Giusto’s menu is best described as Italian-inspired with a Rhode Island point of view. It changes about once a month, but consistently highlights the spoils of local farms, fishermen, and foragers. “I’m really excited about Greenview Farm in Wakefield. The tomatoes that we’re getting from them are incredible,” says O’Donnell.

A recent trip to Sicily with his co-owners at Mother Pizzeria, Lauren Schaefer and Kyle Stamps, also in Newport, has inspired the introduction of more Middle Eastern flavors at both restaurants, as Mediterranean, North African, and Middle Eastern culinary traditions are common there. “We’re going to make kafta, a Turkish-style freeform sausage, with brown butter sage sauce,” says O’Donnell. “That’s the Italian influence, that brown butter sage, and a squash pumpkin ravioli sort of thing. It’ll be a small plate, a snack kafta, the freeform sausage, almost like a spadini, a small skewer, that’s topped with a pomegranate mostarda we’re working on.” 

This season also welcomes the return of the restaurant’s iconic squid ink calamari – locally caught squid dredged in a black squid-ink tempura batter and lightly fried, with capers adding a briny punch, cherry peppers, and a garlicky white wine sauce. It’s a nod to the official state appetizer but with an Italian twist. “We always have a calamari dish or some sort of squid dish on the menu,” he says. “I think squid is such an important part of Rhode Island.”

O’Donnell practically reverse-engineers his menus, starting from what’s readily available at farms like Hopkins Southdowns in North Scituate and Wild Harmony Farm in Exeter, among others. Then he assesses what’s abundant in real time, and plans around that. “I try not to follow trends, and I try not to get inspiration on Instagram or TikTok. It’s just, ‘what do I like to eat? What’s in season?’ And we build the dish that way,” he says. “We try to take that same approach with seafood, too. We try to stay as connected to the local ecosystem as possible.”

Organizations like Farm Fresh Rhode Island, which connects local farmers with chefs, and Eating with the Ecosystem, which promotes a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild, seasonal seafood, help bridge the supply gap for farm-to-table and dock-to-plate dining. “They’ve really helped us make these great connections with some local seafood purveyors and fishermen and women, and educated us on more sustainable species that are available to us,” says O’Donnell about Eating with the Ecosystem.

At Giusto’s monthly chef’s roundtable, kitchen staff openly talk about new recipe ideas and inspiration, and how to evolve popular existing dishes. For example, the coveted summer squash pasta might adopt a Portuguese influence with house-made chorizo using pork from Blackbird Farm in Smithfield, in a dish with slipper limpets – small shellfish resembling a cross between a scallop and a clam – plus Calabrian chilies and preserved lemon. “It’s almost like spaghetti a limone… it’s going to be really fun. Really good,” adds O’Donnell.

The change of season will bring new additions to Mother Pizzeria’s menu too, including a sourdough pizza with spicy lamb sausage and sweet Row 7 squash in addition to longtime favorites that “just really focus on simplicity and quality of ingredients.” “I think pizza is special and really shines when it’s simple and not overly complicated.” As autumn continues to unfold in the coming weeks, a trip to Newport to experience Giusto’s and Mother’s Pizzeria’s seasonal flavors seems, “just right.”