A shucking knife splits open a bottle rocket oyster, out of Duxbury, Mass, a shell no bigger than a thumbnail. The brine tastes like the tide just came in. Six or seven oyster varieties rotate through most nights at Villani & Co., opened to order from the raw bar. Villani got here first, before Wellen Park’s lakefront plaza and pedestrian streets filled in around it. Inside, the dining room feels sleek and yet easygoing: giant abstract canvases against stone walls, gray velvet stools at the marble bar, a single stem in a bud vase at every table.
Executive Chef Mike Leopold, CIA-trained, spent five years in Seattle before settling in Venice, where he helms the kitchen for longtime partner and restaurateur Tommy Villani, whose name hangs over the door. Leopold just nudged the menu toward composed plates, roughly eight in total, a shift from a primarily à la carte format where diners created their own combos from a list of proteins and sides. “The ingredients are the stars of the show,” Leopold says. “When you’re looking at a plate of food, it should be interesting to you before you even take a bite of it.” The kitchen works the waterfront: Key West pink shrimp, mussels two ways, Manhattan-style chowder. “Our oyster selection is something that sets us apart,” Leopold says. The boats determine the lineup, hauling in from Atlantic and Pacific waters alike. “We always try to keep PEI oysters on because they really are the best as far as being perfectly balanced,” he says. “Small shell, big meat.”
Two composed plates show what lies beyond ice. The bone-in Cheshire pork chop, a North Carolina heritage cut, arrives grilled and slathered with red onion bacon jam, goat cheese melting over top. “We tried it one way, and realized how good it is,” Leopold says. “All those flavors together just work perfectly.” He isn’t overselling. The roasted red potatoes with rosemary and garlic keep turning up caramelized crunches. A knife slides through the thick chop like butter. Sweet meets tangy, and the meat stands firm without disappearing behind either.
The Korean Salmon eats lighter: cucumber marinated in soy and sesame oil, a gochujang barbecue sauce over Faroe Island fish and steamed basmati. The pickle answers heat with sour and snap, while the salmon gives way in juicy flakes rather than resisting. “Just typical flavors of Korean food,” he says. Modest, from a chef who can turn out gochujang glaze as easily as hollandaise.
Villani has taken on what Leopold refers to as “the steakhouse vibe,” and it’s full-on: offering hand-cut bone-in ribeyes, filets, sirloin, NY strip or Porterhouse for two, with a choice of a side and a sauce. Get a Bearnaise, horseradish aioli or a gorgonzola crust, and throw in a lobster tail and garlic parmesan fries, if you fancy.
The bill comes with no apology: scallops, dry-packed out of the Northeast, run roughly $230 for an eight-pound bucket, because the cheap ones hold water and steam instead of searing. Standards kitchen-wide. Nothing enters from a can or a freezer; nothing leaves wasted. Trim from steaks gets ground for burgers. The newest menu turns leftover beef tips into a Steak Tips Diane with mashed potatoes and a creamy pan sauce. “I’ve always liked doing classical, old-school things,” Leopold says. Old-school like his dad’s sirloin back in Chicago, marinated in Italian dressing, a recipe he still makes.
Leopold never really clocks out from cooking. His fiancée asks if he ever gets sick of it; he doesn’t. “I don’t turn that part of me off ever, because that’s what interests me,” he says, looking to chefs like Rick Bayless and Alice Waters for how they treat ingredients. A recent menu special, featuring couscous with beets and blood orange, was inspired by a Moroccan cook on TV demonstrating a couscous technique. “I wanted to see if I could do what she was doing. And I thought, well, I’m gonna make a dish around that,” he says. “That’s definitely where my inspiration comes from, and it’s definitely not cuisine-specific.”
Mondays belong to ramen, an improvisation from the gastropub that stuck. Leopold and Villani have a history of those: they built Irma’s tacos out of a first response to the hurricane blackout. Ramen was tossed on the menu as an afterthought till it picked up enough steam to travel with the team. A broth that starts with chicken feet and aromatics, developed slowly, is ladled over fresh noodles, with shrimp and pork belly. “I don’t know if I’d say it’s super traditional as far as Japanese-style ramen,” Leopold says, “but it’s ours, and people seem to like it.”
Villani & Co. draws a full room even on weeknights. Behind the marble bar, a rolling library ladder climbs to the upper shelves of bourbon and scotch, one of the largest selections in southwest Florida. As Wellen Park evolves, so does the partnership. Villani opened VCo Pizzeria in Sarasota this July. Leopold, for his part, thinks ahead. “To stay relevant, you’ve got to change things up once in a while,” he says. “It always makes sense to do it seasonally.” SRQ
