Inside Michelin-Star Chef Massimo Bottura’s First Solo Restaurant in the U.S.

Decades ago, Miami was one of the very first cities that Massimo Bottura visited in the United States. And in the 1980s, the Michelin three-starred chef would spend many of his vacations in the Florida city. So it’s only fitting that Bottura chose the 305 as the location for his inaugural solo restaurant in America: Torno Subito , which opens on Wednesday.

“Miami has always been a special place for me,” he told Robb Report ahead of the opening. Those vacations were “a very, very beautiful moment of my life . .

. Miami has such a big personality that we have to pay homage to Miami.” Torno Subito does that by bringing a dash of whimsy and fun to everything from the menu to the design.

The restaurant is a rainbow of colors, from the red U-shaped bar to the striking yellow pizza oven that sits in the middle of the space. From there, the team is hoping to make “the best pizza in town,” as Bottura put it, but they’re also using the oven to cook items overnight, smoke certain dishes, and finish roasted octopus to make it perfectly crispy. The menu is a collaboration between Bottura and the restaurant’s head chef, Bernardo Paladini, who comes to Miami after heading up the Torno Subito location in Dubai, which earned a Michelin star under his purview.

Prior to the opening, Paladini told Robb Report that they’ve taken an ironic approach to Italian cuisine: “Italians are passionate about the traditions,” he said, “so we try to find a way, an ironic way, to serv.