Bardea owners to open new Italian restaurant in Wilmington's DE.CO food hall

The owners of several Bardea restaurant operations in Wilmington plan to open a full-service Italian restaurant this fall inside the city's DE.CO Food Hall, Delaware Online/The News Journal has learned.

It will join two Bardea-run fast-casual stalls Pizzeria Bardea and Taqueria El Chingon already operating now at the food hall inside the DuPont Building at 10th and Orange streets.

The restaurant will occupy the seating area adjacent to the bar that extends along Orange Street. The Bardea stalls will remain open during construction, which is scheduled to start at the end of July.

Bardea co-founders Scott Stein, Antimo DiMeo and Pino DiMeo, who operate the Market Street restaurants Bardea Food & Drink, The Garden at Bardea, and Bardea Steak, have partnered with DE.CO owners The Buccini Pollin Group for the restaurant that doesn't yet have a name.

The Italian trattoria will have about 70 seats and a full bar. It will offer lunch and dinner daily.

Chef Antimo DiMeo's menu is still in development, but casual Italian is the current inspiration and direction.

DE.CO Food Hall, with its eight food stalls, opened in April 2019. Pizzeria Bardea was one of the original operators. In February 2022, the Bardea team opened their Taqueria el Chingon. It took over the site of the former Phubs, a Vietnamese stall Phubs.

Taqueria el Chingon was a departure from the Italian-themed foods available at Bardea Food & Drink and Pizzeria Bardea. It highlights riffs on Mexican foods. The theme came from foods that staff members have cooked and eaten as a part of the "family meal" which employees enjoy before regular service begins at Bardea Food & Drink on Market Street.

The new Italian trattoria coming this fall will be designed by Philadelphia-based Stokes Architecture + Design, whose recent work in Wilmington includes two other Buccini Pollin Group-affiliated businesses, Bardea Steak and The Quoin Hotel. (The Quoin is not run by Bardea.)

Pino DiMeo, father of chef Antimo DiMeo, oversees day-to-day operations for the two DE.CO Food Hall stalls. He said the Bardea partners decided to open a new restaurant because they noticed DE.CO customers wanted "a more complete dining experience."

The DuPont Building's other full-service restaurant is Le Cavalier at the Green Room, a French brasserie inside the Hotel du Pont.

The Hotel du Pont Grille, a more casual, cafeteria-style dining experience in the hotel's lower level, below the Green Room, closed in 2018. For a brief time, a space at the hotel called the Café, previously the Lobby Lounge, had a daily service of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is no longer operating.

Bardea became a major player in Delaware's hospitality scene when the James Beard Foundation Award in 2019 named it one of the country's best new restaurants. President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden have dined at the restaurant. In 2022, Chef DiMeo was a James Beard Award semifinalist for best chef in the Mid-Atlantic region award.

Chris Buccini, a founder of Buccini Pollin Group, said the new Bardea restaurant will offer a more elevated experience for DE.CO Food Hall customers.

“When we opened DE.CO five years ago, we knew it was ambitious as the first food hall in Delaware. As we continue to invest in DE.CO and allow its offerings to evolve, we are excited to continue to do so with our friends at Bardea," he said.

The Buccini Pollin Group paid $32 million in April 2017 for downtown Wilmington's DuPont Building, which included the Hotel du Pont, the attached 13-story office building, and the Playhouse theater.

DE.CO has had a variety of vendors since 2019. In addition to Pizzeria Bardea and Taqueria El Chingon, its operators now include Al Chu's Sushi, Spark'd Pastry & Coffee, Stu & Sammy's Deli, Rebel Ramen & Bubble Tea, and Delectablez, a vegan stall.

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Connie's Chicken and Waffles, an original DE.CO food hall operator announced on its Instagram page that it would be closing the Wilmington site at the end of June. It still has a stall at the Lexington Market in Baltimore.

DE.CO Food Hall got some competition in December 2022 when the $5 million Chancery Market food hall opened in the former Hercules Plaza building. Chancery Market, located three blocks away from DE.CO, has eight food operators and a bar.

Patricia Talorico writes about food and restaurants. You can find her on Instagram, X and Facebook. Email  [email protected]. Sign up for her  Delaware Eats newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Wilmington food hall adding full-service Bardea Italian restaurant