Casa Tua’s Capri Debut, 25 Years In The Making

Casa Tua has always been, at its core, an Italian idea. Not just in its cuisine, but in its sensibility: a way of hosting, creating atmosphere, and understanding hospitality as something instinctive rather than manufactured. For this reason, its arrival in Capri twenty-five years after its founding feels less like an expansion and more like a very welcome return.

This month, Casa Tua debuts at Oetker Collection's Hotel La Palma, the brand's first Italian outpost. Timed to its 25th anniversary, the opening introduces a meaningful new chapter, one that brings it into closer dialogue with the country that has informed its way of being from the start.

Those familiar with Casa Tua already understand its particular draw. Founded in Miami in 2001 by Miky Grendene and Leticia Herrera-Grendene, it began inside a home in South Beach, where dinner, music, and conversation unfolded with an ease that felt both rare and familiar. It quickly became something more: not just a restaurant or social club, but a world of its own, carried forward in Aspen and, most recently, New York, where its Upper East Side opening drew immediate and sustained attention.

Yet despite its recent growth, Casa Tua has resisted the trappings of scale. Where many brands at this level seek rapid expansion, Casa Tua has shown restraint, quietly and expertly navigating the challenge that has come to define the luxury sector. Each addition to the portfolio is deliberate, shaped less by grand ambition than by instinct, appearing thoughtfully in the places its members and guests already move.

I've sat down with Miky Grendene several times over the years, and when we spoke again to discuss this opening, the raison d'être was clear. "Capri is not a decision you make with your head. It's something you feel in your heart," he said. "More and more we're offering an alternative with Casa Tua—resisting trends and embracing tradition. Capri is a place rich in history and heritage, and we want to become the place where the island's past is reborn."

To do so, what Casa Tua brings to the island is not a single destination, but a way of moving through it. Here, Casa Tua will not only bring its legendary restaurant and club, but also introduce two new concepts Grendene has been working on for years.

First, there's Fuoco, a rooftop restaurant and lounge centered around the elemental principles of cooking: fire and ice. It's a theatrical mix of wood-fired dishes, crudos, and sushi, all prepared in front of guests, set against sweeping views of the Bay of Naples.

In late May, the next chapter arrives with Mare by Casa Tua, home to the brand's first beach club and seafood restaurant, complete with two vessels available for private hire: a 77-foot catamaran, "Cat Tua" and a 43-foot Swan Shadow.

Mare will be the only beach club on the island open for dinner in the evenings, a challenge Grendene embraces with a knowing smile, saying, "Capri during the day is special, but the real magic comes at night. You arrive by boat, the light is soft, everything slows down. There's privacy, music, warmth… It's simple, but it stays with you. That's the moment. It's the best and truest experience of the island we can offer."

Set just steps from the storied Piazzetta, Hotel La Palma—the island's oldest hotel, built in 1822—has been restored and reopened as part of Oetker Collection's portfolio, bringing with it a renewed sense of quiet glamour. On the partnership, Grendene said, "I have a deep respect for Oetker and the way they manage their business. There's a shared sense of restraint between our brands and a mutual respect for the history of a place and the people that came before us. Above all else, we share a deep passion to serve our guests."

It's a partnership that feels both considered and instinctive, allowing Casa Tua to do what it has always done best.

Across the spaces, Casa Tua takes on a new expression—different in form, but wonderfully familiar in feeling. In Capri, Casa Tua comes home and invites us all to stay a while.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com