Vanessa Rogers Photography (©vanessarogersphotography 2017)
March18_BestBite1
Leave it up to Fabrizio and Ingrid Aielli to surprise us with a new gift to start the year off right. Opened in January, Dorona is the Naples-based restaurateurs’ modern Italian steakhouse with a moniker that’s a double entendre—it’s a rare white wine grape grown in chef Fabrizio’s native Venice, and also means “gift” in Hebrew. The restaurant is their first venture in town beyond Third Street South (where they own the award-winning Sea Salt and Barbatella), and they’ve positioned it to deliver top-of-the-line beef, including this domestic Black Angus tomahawk rib chop brushed with rosemary-garlic oil. It’s served simply grilled—or with “finishing touches” like a fried egg or bacon (or a bun if you’re brave). (Other interpretations like tenderloin medallions get royal treatment with aerated béarnaise and lobster.) Because they also want the menu and blue-and-gold-outfitted space to be approachable, the kind of restaurant you’d stop by any day, they’ve worked in salads, poultry, fish and fresh pastas, too.
2110 Ninth St. N., Naples, 230-529-2819, doronanaples.com