New flavors, same chef: This Italian restaurant replaces Puerto Rican flag mural and menu

Chef José Mendín may have given up on the Puerto Rican restaurant with the four-story mural that polarized the MiMo District’s residents, but he has not given up on his commitment to running a restaurant there.

Mendín has replaced Miami’s La Placita, a passion project he started with Spanish-language actor Julián Gil, with an offshoot of his successful Italian restaurant in Sunset Harbour, Casa Isola.

The new Patio Isola will take the Italian menu he created last year at the tiny former home of his Pubbelly gastrobar in Miami Beach — where he was nominated for five James Beard Awards for best chef in the South — and expand it to the mainland with brick-oven pizzas. He’ll do it with the help of his chef partner at Casa Isola, Santo Agnello, a fellow Boricua, who ran Miami Beach’s offshoot of the Brooklyn favorite pizza spot, Lucali.

“I’m invested in this neighborhood,” said Mendín, who says he lives less than a mile away and still holds a favorable lease at the former La Placita site. “We love the neighborhood and we want to do something special here.”

Together, the two Island born chefs — Mendín from Puerto Rico, Agnello from Sicily — team together at Patio Isola (Italian for island) for a much larger location with a proven menu.

Rather than stick to traditional Italian and Italian-America dishes, Mendín and Agnello add modern elements to favorite dishes. Milanesa carpaccio at the original Casa Isola includes aged balsamic and black truffles while the Bolognese pappardelle is made with rabbit. Hearty Parmigiana dishes and rigatoni alla vodka with Calabrian chilis are crowd-pleasers are part of a menu that progresses from antipasti to macaroni and secondi, with a selection of cannolis for dessert.

And the new restaurant will feature pizzas, the likes of which Agnello perfected while working at Lucali, which Brooklyn’s Mark Iacono has taken control of again in South Beach after a disagreement with partners.

The building itself will be painted back to a MiMo District-friendly palette, Mendín said, after going through the historic district’s permitting process this month. Patio Isola is set to open in full July 15 after a short soft opening.

Patio Isola

Address: 6789 Biscayne Blvd., MiMo District

Opening: July 15

More info: Casaisolamiami.com