By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Casa Me, a new Italian restaurant at 7 Sconset Square, is the first joint venture of fashion designer Pina Ferlisi and her husband, restaurateur Mario Fontana.  

Fontana owns the Bodega restaurants in Fairfield and Darien, both specializing in Mexican cuisine. He has also owned several restaurants in Norwalk.

The Southport couple decided to return to their Italian heritage with Casa Me, Ferlisi said, envisioning the concept during the COVID pandemic lockdown.  

An Italian who grew up in Canada, Ferlisi and her husband, an Italian American, were inspired by their favorite place to visit — Italy — and what she called “Italy vacation foods.”

“We love Italy and we’ve traveled to Italy many times,” she said. “During the lockdown the only think I dreamed about was Italy … I wished I could get on a plane and be on the Amalfi coast.”

So instead, they decided to bring Italy to Westport. 

“I said, ‘Why don’t we open an Italian restaurant?’ That way we can be close to the culture and close to the food.” 

Ferlisi has been a fashion designer and creative director for years, working for luxury fashion brands in New York and London, and currently serves as a fashion consultant. 

She used her design experience in planning the downtown restaurant, creating what she calls a casual Italian villa atmosphere.

Casa Me’s bar, features among its craft cocktails the Negroni, replicating “the bar culture Italy has always been famous for,” said Ferlisi.

The couple named their restaurant Casa Me, which means “my house” in Italian, because the atmosphere is fashioned to make guests feel at home, she said.

Fontana prepared the menu of “house-made” pastas and other Italian specialties. They include verdure, vegetable-focused dishes; sfincione, a Sicilian focaccia bread; Roman-style pizza which is made with a lighter dough, and an already-popular lemon pasta, Ferlisi said.

“It is really about great food, and the space … and music.”

Westport diners have been responding favorably in the two weeks since the restaurant opened Oct. 20. “They have embraced us,” Ferlisi said.

Because of the restaurant’s high visibility in newly renovated Sconset Square, plus a small frontage on Post Road East, people had been stopping by weeks earlier, anticipating the opening and anxious to sample its food when it opened.

“We already have had repeat customers,” Ferlisi said.

Casa Me, 7 Sconset Square, is open from 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with the bar open “5 p.m.-late” those days. The restaurant also will start serving lunch in the coming weeks. Call 203-571-3230 or visit the Casa Me website for more information or to make reservations.