Nick Pihakis strolls through the dining room of the Pihakis Restaurant Group’s soon-to-open Luca Lagotto restaurant and ventures into the kitchen, where cooks will prepare made-from-scratch pizzas in ovens imported from Italy.

Then, he wanders toward the front of the building and into what will be the market, Luca Mercato Lagotto, where customers will be able to drop in and pick up imported and domestic wines, cured meats, tinned fish, cheeses and olive oils, as well as house-made sauces and pastas.

Later, Pihakis walks out into the adjoining courtyard, an inviting space where guests will drink and dine among the olive trees.

The Italian restaurant and market, which is scheduled to open Feb. 20 in downtown Homewood, is a concept inspired by an extended trip to Greece and Italy that members of the Pihakis restaurant family took in October 2022.

The Italian leg of that trip included visits to some of the villages in the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy.

“We really got inspired by the small villages where they made this incredible product,” Pihakis says, “but also by the way that they set up their businesses, with a market and restaurant (together).”

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Developing a menu

Luca, as the restaurant and market will be collectively known, will be located in a newly constructed building at 1722 28th Ave. South in Homewood, just around the corner from the Pihakis Restaurant Group’s Rodney Scott’s BBQ and Little Donkey restaurants and next door to the new location of another PRG property, Hero Doughnuts & Buns, which will relocate from its original location at 3027 Central Ave.

“I really liked the idea of keeping our restaurants close together,” Pihakis says. “People can park and choose where they want to go.”

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Rita Bernhardt, Luca Lagotto’s executive chef, collaborated with Paul Yeck, the Pihakis Restaurant Group’s executive chef, on the menu. Some of the dishes on the working menu include grilled fish, roasted chicken, spaghetti with clams, and rigatoni with fennel sausage — along with shared plates such as fried carbonara and snapper crudo and a selection of Roman and Neapolitan pizzas.

The spirits menu will feature wines by the glass and the bottle, craft beers from Alabama breweries, and classic and specialty cocktails.

The Alabama connections

The Pihakis Restaurant Group worked with Michael Shows and Will Hall of Montgomery-based Chambless King Architects to design the space, which blends traditional Italian elements with a few modern touches.

“Both of them have been such fun to collaborate with,” Angie Mosier, the Pihakis Restaurant Group’s creative director, says. “Once we got back from Italy, we dumped all these photos on them and tried to explain what struck us. And they got it.”

Birmingham-based Alabama Sawyer, which makes handcrafted furniture out of wood repurposed from fallen trees, built the tables, booths and banquettes for the dining room, and another Birmingham company, Elegant Earth, made the planters and stone tables for the courtyard.

The restaurant will seat 129 guests inside and another 60 outside.

Marcus Fetch, whose eye-catching murals adorn buildings all around Birmingham, painted the breezy mural of a woman riding her bicycle that blankets one of the exterior walls of the restaurant and market.

“The color of the building and the shutters and the mural and the awnings were all inspired by things we saw (in Italy),” Mosier says. “We were struck by a couple of restaurants that we visited there. We just loved how they mixed modern within those old buildings.”

What’s in a name?

The restaurant’s name, Luca Lagotto, is a tribute to Nick and Suzanne Pihakis’ dog Luca, a Lagotto Romagnolo Italian breed known as a “truffle dog.” They won it at an auction to benefit the Southern Foodways Alliance at Blackberry Farm, one of the few places in the United States that breeds Lagotto Romagnolo dogs.

A sketch of Luca appears on the restaurant’s menu.

“He’s a great dog,” Pihakis says. “He jumps all over the place and is just full of energy, just full of life.”

In addition to Luca Lagotto and Luca Mercato Lagotto, the Pihakis Restaurant Group’s restaurant brands include Rodney Scott’s BBQ, Hero Doughnuts & Buns, Little Donkey and Tasty Town Greek Restaurant and Lounge. The company owns and operates restaurants in Birmingham, Montgomery, Atlanta, Nashville and Charleston, S.C.

Pihakis, who got in the restaurant business when he and his father opened the original Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q in Birmingham in 1985, says opening a new restaurant never gets old.

“That’s what we do,” he says. “It’s in your blood. Every time we do something new, it’s still just as exciting.”

Luca Lagotto and Luca Marcato Lagotto will be at 1722 28th Ave. South in Homewood, Ala. For more information, go here.