Miami's Next It Restaurant Makes a Grand Entrance

Every day in Miami, the old is made new again. And while David Grutman and Noah Tepperberg aren’t among the city’s nation-leading core of cosmetic surgeons, with the opening of Casadonna the hospitality titans have given one of the city’s most venerated ladies a second star turn.

Dipping its toe into the cerulean blue waters of Biscayne Bay, the four-story Mediterranean Revival in the city’s burgeoning Edgewater district was once home to the Miami Women’s Club for nearly a century. Opened in 1926, the project was overseen by architect August Geiger, whose prolific body of work shaped the character of South Florida.

Grutman, the founder of Groot Hospitality and the anointed king of Miami nightlife, first pitched the site to friend, would-be partner, and Tao Group Hospitality CEO Tepperberg on a 2017 boat ride. Just to give him the full effect. “If we were going to collaborate,” Grutman says. “It had to be really special.”

As one of the most in-demand figures in hospitality, Grutman is no stranger to high-profile collaborations. In 2021, he teamed up with Pharrell Williams on Miami Beach’s Goodtime Hotel, whose opening party included guests like Kim Kardashian, Future, and the Beckhams. 

Last year, he opened Gekkō, a Japanese-inspired steakhouse, with Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny. Most recently, Grutman’s cornerstone club, LIV, and restaurants Papi Steak and Komodo were among the much-hyped roster at Las Vegas’s sparkling new Fontainebleau hotel. But Casadonna is a true first of its kind—a joint venture between Groot and Tao Group Hospitality, a powerhouse but newcomer to the Miami market.

Tepperberg, for his part, has overseen openings from Los Angeles to Dubai. His group’s holdings include more than 80 branded restaurants, clubs, and lounges in more than 20 markets. But before that, he was just a college kid at the University of Miami.

The homecoming, Tepperberg says, went a long way toward getting his sign-on, even for something he’s never done. “Neither of us has ever developed a building with such history. It’s been a much heavier lift than we ever imagined. But the final product is well worth everything that went into it.”

The result is a coastal Italian-inspired “icon,” as the partners each describe it, whose name, casa (house) and donna (woman), pays homage to the historic Miami Women’s Club. Like any centenarian, it’s spanned several incarnations.

For decades, the club was a cultural, educational, and organizational epicenter, responsible for Miami’s public library system. Its latest chapter welcomes a couple of marquee hospitality concepts. Occupying the fourth and fifth floors, Klaw’s lauded surf-and-turf menu is right at home in the lavish environs conceived by prolific designer Martin Brudnizki. 

While time ultimately mints icons, the demand since Casadonna’s October opening is certainly a good start. Its meticulously curated 20,000 square feet span a double-height atrium bar and an outdoor living-room-style terrace. Ample space for nearly 400 guests to luxuriate over the Riviera-style fare, craft cocktails, and vast wine list. The Grutman posse has followed: Lionel Messi, Drake, and the aforementioned Kardashian and Beckham clans have all made appearances, entourages in tow. 

A star-studded clientele demands theatrical stagecraft. For that, the partners turned to celebrated designer Ken Fulk, who didn’t need a boat ride to make up his mind. “I rarely pass up an opportunity to reimagine a historic space that can be returned to the community as a relevant and vibrant gathering place,” says Fulk, who is no stranger to splashy Miami debuts, having lent his touch to Major Food Group’s Carbone, Dirty French, and the buzzy new Chateau ZZ’s. “The Women’s Club is exactly the type of grand dame old architecture that inspires our work as a firm.”

True to Fulk’s oeuvre, color abounds, with pinks, greens, and blues drawn from the building’s original palette. Historic photos from the club’s archive hang amidst a curated collection of art and photography, including work from Karl Blossfeldt, the German sculptor and photographer known for his magnified imagery of plants.

The textures, too, are warm and plentiful: velvet upholsteries, lush flora, painstakingly restored windows. A thorough engagement of the senses is critical to Casadonna’s “slow reveal” that Fulk and his team want all comers to experience, no matter the occasion.

“I consider it my job to set the stage for memorable moments,” Fulk says. “Sometimes that’s a fun night out, a romantic weekend, an intimate dinner, or a touching tribute—it’s all about time well spent.”

To that end, hospitality’s raison d’etre is memories. Something to hold onto and reminisce over. Old connections made new again. It’s what Grutman and Tepperberg envisioned for Casadonna when the gears began turning in Biscayne Bay. It’s what pushed them in the years since, Grutman says.

“We wanted to do something that was going to leave a legacy.”