The much-anticipated Tutto Mare opened earlier this season next to Glazer Hall, making it the first waterfront restaurant on the Intracoastal Waterway on Palm Beach Island. The still-hard-to-get reservation is part of the Tutto il Giorno restaurant group, which also has locations in Southampton, East Hampton, and Sag Harbor. Sitting in the newly restored Playhouse at the Royal Poinciana Plaza, Gabby Karan de Felice brought the vision to life, along with her husband Gianpaolo de Felice.
Karan de Felice says her husband, who hails from Italy, “had always wanted to be in Palm Beach because it is the perfect audience and the same clientele from New York and the Hamptons.” Plus, their daughter is an equestrian in nearby Wellington.
“I think it’s very true to our identity,” Karan de Felice says of the restaurant’s design, which is essentially an extension of the couple’s home. Many of the materials are sourced from Italy—upholstery from Dedar, travertine from Italy—as were craftsmen behind the chairs and millwork. The designer worked with Italian architects Dominic Kozerski and Enrico Bonetti of Bonetti Kozerski Architecture, longtime collaborators she previously worked with on DKNY and Donna Karan stores.
Of note, the restaurant’s historic Celebrity Room, which was previously part of the Playhouse, includes a restored ceiling mural from the 1950s. “I kept it super simple,” Karan de Felice says. “I didn’t want to touch it up too much.” Local painter Robert Bushnell refinished the mural with earth tones—Pompeii, burnt hues, roses, beiges, and terracotta—which are echoed in the pillows and upholstery throughout.
“I think we were able to achieve intimacy in a space that was really big,” Karan de Felice says. A private dining room seats 30, while the Celebrity Room offers a special menu of seafood towers, truffles, and caviar. The main dining room is more casual with wicker furniture, linen fabrics, and an oyster bar with stone sourced from Italy. The rattan lanterns that hang in the dining room were made in Bali. “I wanted something unique and unusual and not something you could just buy off the shelf,” Karan de Felice shares. Outside, she compares sitting on the terrace at dinnertime to watching the sunset over the Mediterranean.
In addition to the restaurant’s interiors, Tutto Mare includes a curated retail space that reflects Karan de Felice’s design heritage. “I think she was a pioneer in the ‘70s of that when she opened up her shops,” she says of her mother, fashion designer Donna Karan, whose cashmere sweaters designed in Italy are available for sale. “In all of our properties, I have an ode to my mom—whether it’s retail or furniture she designs for sale.”
