For Brenna and Daniel Lewis—20-year veterans of Brooklyn, New York—one long weekend in Baltimore was all it took to convince them to relocate.
“We knew nobody here. We didn’t have jobs here. We had no reason to move here,” Brenna says. “But we came here for a long weekend and fell in love with it.”
At the time of their visit in 2023, the two were in search of a new home. Burnt out by the rising costs in New York and the corporate shift in their once-bohemian neighborhood, the couple searched for a city with youthful energy and a community of creatives. Ultimately, the San Diego natives saw that Baltimore was a place “where if you wanted to do something interesting, you could do it.”
With their first business, clothing brand Brooklyn Tailors, in good shape and running remotely with online sales, they decided to break into the dining industry.
“Food and restaurants have always been—I think, speaking for both of us—our biggest passion,” Daniel says. “My father was a chef. It’s always been this obsession. It’s something we’ve talked about doing professionally since we got out of college.”
So they purchased Little Italy’s Osteria da Amadeo on South Exeter Street in the summer of 2025 from owner Amadeo Ebrahimpour, who had been running the business since February 2010. Ebrahimpour previously listed the property for sale in 2017, but kept it going even through the uncertainty of the pandemic—closing, reopening, and attempting to sell several more times, until Brenna and Daniel finally took him up on the offer.
“Almost every single person has a story about how Amadeo tried to sell them the place at some point,” laughs Brenna.
Now with the new owners at the helm, Amadeo’s is a cozy corner rowhome restaurant that offers a modern take on Italian-adjacent cuisine. Though the team took some time off earlier this month to prioritize minor renovations, the restaurant will be back open for regular dinner service Wednesday through Saturday starting Jan. 21.
The owners, who had never worked in the restaurant business before, bought the spot with a condition that they could watch how Osteria da Amadeo operated for three months to get to know the patrons and the history before officially reopening as Amadeo’s in October. A fixture in the neighborhood, Ebrahimpour still lives a half a block down, so the couple decided to keep its name, shortening it from Osteria da Amedeo to Amadeo’s.
“He was so flattered by that,” Daniel recalls. “He didn’t expect that.”
At Amadeo’s, Daniel has stepped into the kitchen, taking inspiration from the flavors and ingredients he and Brenna enjoy. While not Italian in heritage or background, the couple has spent a lot of time in the country and surrounding European cities for their fashion business.
Printed weekly, the seasonal menu—meant to be a departure from the Italian-American spaghetti and meatballs—features a tight half-page of antipasti (including the couples’ favorite shrimp cocktail) with lots of olives and cheese, plus salads, three to four pastas, and a main dish. Among recent highlights: Daniel’s 12-hour bolognese and sausage and polenta in a San Marzano tomato sauce.
Brenna runs the front of house, and the couple enlisted Daniel’s longtime bandmate, David King, who moved from California to help out behind the bar. The beverage program includes natural wine and beer, as well as cocktails like Brenna’s signature martini and a house Negroni.
While Little Italy wasn’t their first choice for a restaurant—the couple originally wanted to work closer to their new home in Charles Village—they were captivated by its history and close-knit charm. They found camaraderie in fellow newcomer Sisu, which opened in May of 2025, and Ovenbird Bakery, whose storefront is just across the street from Amadeo’s.
“We couldn’t feel better about being part of this community,” Brenna says. “Coming from Southern California and then living in New York, you barely know your neighbors. But the number of people who walk in this door every day, who I just know, and we’ll pick up the conversation we started the day before—it’s wonderful. I feel like this is what we’ve always been searching for.”
Holistically, the duo wants Amadeo’s to be a place where diners can really stop what they’re doing and focus on sharing a meal with loved ones.
“I think the worst experience is being rushed out of a restaurant,” Brenna says. “[When I’m dining out] it’s a whole evening for me. And in Europe, that’s exactly what it is. We’ve had one negative review, and it was from somebody being like, ‘It took too long.’ And we were like, well, yeah, that was kind of the idea…”