By Dylan Dias
Great design surpasses vision. Perceiving the story of a space is one thing, crafting it – its crescendos, its depth, and its quiet monologues – is another. Tapestry and texture, shadow and light, material and art. From a distance, it’s atmosphere. Up close, it’s a patchwork of pristine things. Together, its nature – the identity and experience of a time and place – seamlessly interwoven. When chatting with the eminent Nadia Di Donato – the Vice President and Creative Director of Liberty Entertainment Group and the talented design lead behind their prolific catalogue of world-renowned restaurants and venues – she painted for us, with colourful insight, a window into the mastery of that process.
A leading figure in the food and hospitality industry for the better part of thirty years with Liberty Entertainment, Nadia’s initial work in the art and design world began in visual communications and graphic design – leading her into the print and publication sector as a creative director. And after working alongside a globally-acclaimed architecture and design magazine in Toronto, Nadia’s innate and lived experiences understanding interiors allowed her to grow, naturally, with Liberty’s expanding pedigree – one that matched her own. Diversifying themselves from past iconic resto-lounge and club spaces that helped define Toronto’s growing scene (the likes of Tattoo Rock Parlour, The Left Bank, Spice Route, and C Lounge), Liberty began to spread its wings into the world of elegant, refined dining, landmark venues, and historic properties (the likes of Casa Loma, the Liberty Grand, and the legendary Rosewater).
“[We’ve had] lots of successes, lots of failures – the important thing was to keep changing to stay the same. We started with 1 employee in our office, now we have 1400.”
Since then, Nadia, beside her husband Nick Di Donato – the President and CEO of Liberty Entertainment Group – have continued to conceptualize and collaborate on some of the most beautiful, recognizable, and celebrated restaurants in the city, country, and world in Toronto (and soon-to-be abroad). Some we’ve visited, all we’ve adored – the airy and palatial Don Alfonso 1890 and the dreamlike grandeur of DaNico – both of which are regarded as two of the best Italian restaurants in the world outside of Italy and both of which have been honoured with a Michelin Star. With everything designed through Nadia’s deft hand, exacting eye, and stunning, inimitable details.
“I always treat a space more like an art piece than a room.”
For Nadia, it begins simply – standing in a room and letting its character build upon itself and evolve around her as she coaxes and refines its visual language. Conceptually, it starts on paper – a general direction and an idea that is massaged, slowly, until it finds its form. Although all design and composition require precise elements to pull it together, Nadia’s unique approach is a bit more emotional and transient – an intuitive interplay between vision, material, spirit, and story. How does it feel to be here? What is the space evoking? What is needed to take it there? And perhaps most importantly – how is the experience remembered? Through Nadia’s lens, design of this calibre is less about trends and aimless impact, and far more about a sense of style and being – a space that invokes the objects and furnishings that personify its spirit, as opposed to the other way around, which is so often seen in newer, media-driven restaurants of high flash and low substance. Dynamic, but with purpose. Restraint, but with necessary depth and balance. A lasting impression – always.
“I feel like the hospitality industry has become a platform for design competitions. I feel like there’s a disconnect between all the design that goes into a restaurant and what the patron is actually there for. It should all be married – from menu, to food, to decor, to service – everything should be cohesive. That’s what I do. I detail everything – from the last tableware item, to what the servers are wearing, to what the menus look like, to the space. It’s really important to be tight. Details matter.”
Walking into DaNico – Liberty Entertainment’s Michelin-awarded, No. 3 Italian restaurant in the world outside of Italy – is a breathtaking study on quiet magnificence. Nestled into one of Toronto’s historic architectural gems on the northeast corner of Bathurst and College – a Romanesque building of ornate detail – DaNico’s deep opulence, to Nadia’s credit, is immediately felt upon entering. Large, imposing wooden doors – original pieces, distressed and untouched, from a rustic inn on the outskirts of Tuscany, framed by a checkerboard of Versace Manifesto porcelain tiling – open into a space of dramatic verticality. Clandestine pockets and beams of light create spatial dimension, texture, and focal points that illuminate without austerity. Curved, elongated wooden shapes tower as pillars of sculpture, anchored by a fluid-like obelisk of light at the heart of the dining space. Lush, quilted velvets in olive and chartreuse, floral brocades, and midnight emerald leather anchored by polished marble, warm woods, and soft gold. As if it were a venerable cathedral lined in pipe organs and rose windows, but reborn into a different realm entirely, DaNico’s hypnotic beauty teeters on the edge of midnight dreamscape, historical shrine, and elegant restaurant – a window into the mind of Nadia Di Donato.
I feel like the hospitality industry has become a platform for design competitions. I feel like there’s a disconnect between all the design that goes into a restaurant and what the patron is actually there for. It should all be married – from menu, to food, to decor, to service – everything should be cohesive. That’s what I do. I detail everything – from the last tableware item, to what the servers are wearing, to what the menus look like, to the space. It’s really important to be tight. Details matter.
— NADIA DI DONATO
“I wasn’t trained with all the rules; I don’t know the rules. So I break all of them.”
For Nadia, the masterpiece might be the feeling, but the details are the canvas. Specific, distinct touches of design – both bold and nuanced – embody the mystique of DaNico. Enormous, grand paintings that fill the east wall, accented by framed light and peppered with the iconic, visual signatures of local artists Peter Triantos and Max Jamali, respectively. Sanctified imagery that transforms itself with contemporary grit into something that sparkles just a bit differently than you might expect – a conscious, deliberate mark of Nadia’s eye. As well as crisp wooden cabinetry, clean and functional, but finished with delicate Chanel knobs in brushed gold. Though cheekily – not actually knobs – and instead outfitted from the caps of cologne bottles favourited by her husband. Yes – it’s kind of hilarious. But yes – it’s kind of amazing. Existing, as a glimmer, to Nadia’s sense of craftsmanship and bespoke detailing. And once you see it – you’ll never forget it.
“You can’t buy them even if you tried, they don’t exist.”
That said, a walkthrough of DaNico’s sublime space is incomplete without a trip to its accessible bathroom. There, I said it. Yes, it’s a bathroom, but it was perhaps the most stunning bathroom I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. So stunning that I spoke about it for weeks following. So stunning that when Nadia herself asked me what my favourite part of DaNico was, I blurted out embarrassingly and without thinking – “the bathroom!” And so stunning that I’d rather stand and take pictures of its details than ever actually use it. But that’s just me. Aquamarine stone, so gleaming you can see yourself in it, surrounds the room in what feels like a tunnel of water – reflecting the sparkle, high above you, of a gold chandelier and its beads of light. Crystalline mirrors, shaped like droplets of water breaking on the surface of its jeweled walls, cascade toward you. And a golden tusk of brushed metal, arching down and masquerading as something as rudimentary as a faucet – though it must be more – to wash your hands beneath. It could be a bathroom, but it could be a treasure trove. And yes, I could write poetry about it.
“[Laughing] we won an award for that bathroom – it’s like a little jewelry box.”
As a passionate, longtime collector and connoisseur of fine art and sculpture, monumental, striking, and collaborative art have always held meaningful space in any room brought to life by Nadia – though not in protected displays removed from its audience. Instead, they are integrated into the natural breadth of the environment. A bronze Salvador Dalí sculpture, pulled from Nadia’s personal collection, perches itself, shining but unconcerned, atop DaNico’s Chanel-accented cabinetry in the centre of the dining space. At the entrance of the restaurant, crowning its reception, a graphic and vivid Damien Hirst painting. And at DaNico’s bar, above its glossy, ashen marble, an original Mr. Brainwashpulls focus.
“The texture of art is important [to a space]. When you put it behind glass, it gets lost.”
Nadia’s iconic work in Toronto’s famed Don Alfonso 1890 outpost – also Michelin-starred and honoured as the No. 10 Italian restaurant in the world outside of Italy – typify these distinct qualities, though differently. Plush, creamy linens, seating, and curved lines in both furniture and motifs echo the orbital, glassy, sun-soaked space – creating breadth and air through its width as a mirror to DaNico’s height. And Philippe Pasqua’s Crane, the sculptural centrepiece of Don Alfonso’s dining room – a white patina skull clad in graphic butterflies – remains a cathartic emblem to Nadia and her use of art.
“That’s a museum piece [that helped] dictate the design of Don Alfonso. It has a story – it’s about death and rebirth. It had meaning and significance to me. I just thought it was absolutely perfect and nobody could talk me out of putting that piece in its place. It could’ve been loved, it could’ve been hated – I took a risk.”
Risk is an interesting word when it comes to design. It might be attached to the idea of garish elements, the expense of creating, or to the success of the market you’re creating for. But what’s fascinating here is that in Nadia’s case – it’s more about just being yourself. The finesse in a detail that only she notices is needed, the concept of visual texture through temperatures of light instead of colour, or using magnificent art, not just to display itself, but to align with the story of the space itself. The risk is imagination, and having the ambition to follow through, which is what makes these restaurants – aside from the incredible food itself – unforgettably beautiful.
“I’m the type of person who always looks ahead – I never look back. Anything I do, I give it 150%, nothing less. If it doesn’t work out – so be it. It’s as important as if it does work out. Never be afraid.”
With her sense of creativity touching the deep roots of her heritage, Nadia’s connection to Italy, and her family’s legacy of design, have always been intrinsically tied to her talent.
“My roots are from Florence. I don’t feel like you can be born in Florence and not have art running through you.”
As a child, Nadia Di Donato often sat in the garage and watched her grandfather – a fine cabinetmaker who hailed from Florence – carve wood into art. And through her mother as well – a fashion designer and illustrator – creativity and design were ingrained. Perhaps not even culturally, but spiritually. It’s this message to home, this string of history, that threads design that is steeped in generations of tradition into new tapestries of expression and impact. It’s about finding yourself but also being yourself – where you’ve been to where you’re going. Something that, both tangibly and intangibly, finds its way into the language of Nadia’s work – a person who isn’t afraid of traversing the waters of what’s new, incredible, and challenging while understanding, and respecting, what has always been extraordinary.
I wasn’t trained with all the rules; I don’t know the rules. So I break all of them.
— NADIA DI DONATO
“It wasn’t one turning point. It was in my DNA, but I honed it. Like I said – you change to stay the same. Sometimes you have to throw it back to let it all shine through.”
Nadia Di Donato continues to build iconic spaces with unmatched vision and design repertoire in today’s industry. Even most recently, in Toronto’s historic Union Station, the newly-opened Blue Bovine – a restaurant and private wine club that challenged Nadia and her team to create entirely custom-made ceiling treatments. Custom patterns and custom crown molding built to resemble the inner-mechanics of a timepiece were placed, with intentional and clever impact, to mitigate the obstacle of a low, industrial ceiling and transform it into something spectacular. Unsurprisingly, she did.
In truth, the legacy Nadia Di Donato continues to craft is one that surpasses design alone – it is a legacy of spirit. The relationships we have with the spaces in our lives – those in which we rest, those in which we love, and those in which we experience beauty. It’s not just about how we see these rooms, but how we feel within them – how we connect. And it’s these nuances, despite what complexities may guide it there, that leave genuine, timeless impressions. And it’s what allows a designer like Nadia Di Donato – an artist that creates frameworks of design as if she would a painting – to build spaces of unrivalled vision. None of which we will ever forget. Thank you, sincerely, for lighting the way. – VV
Photography by Scott Lennon and Videography by Films First, Makeup by Sarah Condemi
