He was sixteen years old, court-ordered to an alternative school in Rhode Island, looking for a way to pass the time. A retired Johnson & Wales chef named Andy ran a vocational culinary program there. Kevin signed up. Chef Andy saw something in him. And that was the beginning of everything. Chef Kevin O'Donnell is a multi-time James Beard Award nominee and the owner of Giusto and Mother Pizzeria in Newport, Rhode Island. Giusto is his flagship restaurant at Hammett's Hotel on the Newport waterfront, serving what Kevin calls freestyle Italian cuisine: not Roman, not Tuscan, not southern Italian, but Italian cuisine seen through a Rhode Island lens, cooked with the seasons, and built around the relationships with local farmers, fisheries, and artisans that Kevin has spent a lifetime cultivating. Mother Pizzeria is his sister concept built around a 100% sourdough pizza program using stone-ground heirloom wheat from a local mill and mozzarella from the only mozzarella producer in Rhode Island. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Kevin for a conversation that covers one of the most genuinely moving arcs The Perfect Bite has ever told. From a North Kingstown childhood where food was about gathering rather than cooking, to turbulent high school years where his parents split and he moved out at sixteen and made choices he has spent twenty-five years building something beautiful beyond. From Ocean Tides to Junction Pizzeria to Johnson & Wales to a walk through an Italian farmers market that changed how he understood food forever. From Del Posto to Paris to a Boston restaurant nominated for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation the year it opened, to the moment he and his wife found out they were having a baby and he knew it was time to come home to Rhode Island. This is a conversation about what cooking can do for a person. And what a person can do with cooking when they decide to give everything back. In this episode, we cover: Growing up in North Kingstown, Rhode Island in an Irish-Italian-Swedish household where food was about gathering rather than cookingA huge childhood appetite that eventually pointed him toward the kitchenHis parents splitting when he was going into high school and moving out at sixteen to live with a friendPoor decisions, difficult choices, and a court-ordered stint at Ocean Tides, an alternative school in Rhode IslandChef Andy, a retired Johnson & Wales instructor who ran the vocational culinary program at Ocean Tides and saw something in Kevin immediatelyBasketball and cooking as the two things that gave him structure and routine when he needed it mostGraduating Ocean Tides, reflecting on what the rehabilitative model gave him versus what incarceration would have takenJunction Pizzeria in North Kingstown and chef Walter Slater, a Johnson & Wales graduate who taught him the soft skills of becoming an adultWalter Slater hiring only athletes because people who play team sports already know how to work togetherGoing to Johnson and Wales at twenty-one through a weekend continuing education program while working two full-time jobs and paying his own way without debtHis Johnson & Wales internship in Orvieto, Umbria at Ristorante Zeppelin under Chef Lorenzo Pellegrini: four months that turned into almost three yearsWalking through the Orvieto farmers market every morning on the way to work and understanding seasonality for the first time in his lifeLorenzo as a well-traveled, creative chef and a traditionalist Sicilian chef in the same kitchen: learning both sides of Italian cooking simultaneouslyThe quality of Italian ingredients as the single most important lesson from his time there: starting with the best makes everything else simpleCastle Hill Inn in Rhode Island, then Del Posto in New York under Mark Ladner and a two Michelin star approach to a tomato sauce that changed how he thinks about simplicityAn unexpected job offer to be chef at a restaurant in Paris that he could not turn down despite never studying FrenchComing back home, moving to Boston, and opening SRV (Serene Republic of Venice) in the South End in 2016 with a partner he had worked with in Italy, New York, and ParisSRV nominated for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in the year they opened, building their own grain mill and milling 100% of their flour in-houseFinding out he and his wife were expecting a baby and the decision to leave SRV and come home to Rhode IslandChoosing Newport over Providence and why: the water, the family connection, the access to seafood, and the predictability of the seasonal tourist marketGiusto: the name means right or just in Italian, and the whole story of how it came to be is that everything about the location, the landlords, and the opportunity felt rightWhat freestyle Italian cuisine means: not tied to any region, inspired by all of Italian cooking, filtered through Rhode Island ingredients and seasonsThe Scotch meatball: a cult classic on the menu since day one, a Scotch egg wrapped in meatball batter with a tomato sauce that cooks fast and hot rather than all day longThe fried calamari in squid ink tempura: a Rhode Island tradition elevated, with squid as one of the state's biggest fisheriesMother Pizzeria: opened three years after Giusto with partners Kyle Stamps and Lauren Schaefer, built around a 100% sourdough pizza program using stone-ground heirloom wheat from a Massachusetts millMother as the name of the sourdough starter culture, and why it was an obvious choice the moment Lauren suggested itNarragansett Creamery as the only mozzarella producer in Rhode Island and a core ingredient at MotherMother's pizza philosophy: crispy outside, soft and chewy inside, less is more with toppings, and a Calabrian Luau that has become one of their most beloved and controversial piesTeaching at Ocean Tides, the Rhode Island Hospitality Education Foundation, Future Chefs in Boston, and the Jacques Pépin culinary arts program at Boston UniversityWhy being a chef is being a teacher, and why teaching forces him to keep learningWhat he is most proud of: creating a place where people want to work and seeing his team take ownership and pride in what they have built togetherAdvice for founders: think everything all the way through, stress test your assumptions, and be prepared for problems before they arrive because they will Find Kevin, Giusto, and Mother Pizzeria: Giusto: 4 Commercial Wharf, Hammett's Hotel, Newport Rhode Island. Instagram: @giustonewportMother Pizzeria: 49 Long Wharf Mall, Newport Rhode Island. Instagram: @motherpizzeria Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!
