You might not know Lola Jacaj; after all, until last year, the restaurants on her roster — Luca Italian Cuisine, Luca West and Acqua Di Luca — bore the name of chef Luca Sema, her former collaborator and ex-husband. But you should. Since opening Luca Italian Cuisine on the Superior Viaduct in 2013, Jacaj has established herself as one of Cleveland’s foremost experts on wine and hospitality. Acting as owner-operator to Sema’s chef-owner, she further solidified that status when West Sixth Street’s Acqua di Luca — a Mediterranean-inspired fine dining experience with impeccable service — opened in 2021. Since her divorce from Sema, Jacaj retained ownership of the Downtown restaurants, which have been rebranded as Casa La Luna and Acqua di Dea.
Jacaj says going on her own has been “lonely,” but despite these uncharted waters, Jacaj isn’t playing it safe. In June, she launched Oliva Steakhouse. Directly next door to Acqua, the restaurant is the first of two Downtown restaurants she hopes to open in 2024, with a French eatery set to open by the end of the year on the opposite side of Acqua. Connected by a back alleyway, the budding compound on the corner of St. Clair Avenue and West Sixth Street is being operated as three restaurants under one roof, with general manager Damir Terzic helming all three.
“The structure is unique,” she says. “We’ll keep it as separate as we can when it comes to kitchen and service. But management, we just run it as one big restaurant with three concepts.”
Off St. Clair, a subtle stairway leads to Oliva’s 100-seat dining room with a bar and a chef’s table. A warmth comes not only from the fireplace and open kitchen but also from the natural wood and stone. The location is a homecoming for Jacaj, who started her career at Osteria, the space’s predecessor which later moved to Walnut Avenue. Previous visitors must be shocked by the spaciousness created by knocking down the wall separating the front of house from the kitchen, though a winding limestone wine shelf gives the illusion that the intimate room is even bigger than it is. Natural wood slats separate the entrance from nearby tables without blocking natural light, precious in the basement room.
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Originally envisioning a feminine steakhouse, Jacaj, who has designed each of her restaurants, worked with HSB Architects and Engineers, especially director of interior design Marisa Melchior, landed on a sleek, androgynous venue with modernist charm.
The yearlong renovation wasn’t the only challenge leading up to opening day. While Michael White has served as executive chef so far, the menu was designed by Tommaso Alfonso Varrese, a 51-year-old chef from Italy, who has worked in five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants all over the world.
For the past year, Jacaj has wrestled with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to secure a work visa for Varrese. The process makes osso bucco look like instant noodles, so as of this writing, he remains in limbo. In the meantime, Zoom calls have helped Jacaj and her team execute the menu.
If Luca is the traditional offering and Acqua’s rustic seafood approach is the step in a more innovative direction, Oliva is a deep dive into contemporary Italian cuisine.
A Chinese chef who focuses on Northern Chinese cuisine told us recently that the Shanghainese- and Cantonese-
style food that many American restaurants offer is as outdated in China as beef Wellington is in the U.S. So is a lot of the Italian food
we eat.
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“I wanted to bring this chef from Italy because I feel like, with creativity, we need to step it up a bit,” she says. “We have great restaurants, but we all play it safe. I believe he’ll take us ahead.”
The menu centers around “nose-to-tail beef” offerings and pasta with ingredients that would make your nonna scoff. In both our visits, servers suggest coursing out plates to share, starting with the lighter antipasti section. The primavera ($16) offered a nice summer teaser with roasted peaches and fig vincotto balancing out the creamy burrata and salty prosciutto before moving on to the gamberetti ($20), a sauteed jumbo shrimp in a white wine sauce spiced with aleppo pepper flakes, and the bocconcini di manzo ($18), rolled up ricotta and filet mignon that gave off a twice-baked potato consistency.
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The dishes in the primi course range in size. The gnocchi ($18) arrived as just 12 pieces in a cheesy cream sauce. Despite smaller portions, curious diners find satisfaction in those hand-rolled dumplings, given a twist by adding beets to the typical potato approach. A heavier version of the restaurant’s innovation is the chitara ($20). Braised, shredded veal shoulder intertwines with angel hair pasta, while mushrooms (porcini and morel) and blueberries give pops of umami and sweetness.
On both visits, we skipped the insalata, zuppa and secondi sections of the menu, which is fairly extensive, substantial (most of the time) and pricey. However, the pasce al sale ($48), a deboned whole branzino that is kept tender and encrusted by the salt on which its cooked, was on our radar.
Back on land, a curation of USDA Prime Certified Angus Beef ranges from the $55 ribeye steak to the $120 bistecca alla fiorentina. On our first visit, a medium rare bone-in ribeye ($72), known as the cowboy ribeye, arrived expertly crusted in sea
salt and pepper. Working from the tender, pink and delicious outskirts, the thick cut was a bit raw near the center. A subsequent order of the bistecca alla fiorentina ($120), pre-sliced and assembled around a towering bone, was also
rawer
than expected. Admittedly, the never-chewy, blood-red center made me reevaluate my preferences and the variation between slices was ideal for sharing. The mammoth and aggressively seasoned meat does not disappoint, but consider ordering one level
of doneness higher than usual.
The tiramisu ($14), a constant on the dessert menu that is more of a custard than a cake, is a final reminder that Oliva is different. Steakhouses are having a moment right now thanks to riffs on the overdone experience. Oliva joins Brazilian steakhouse Batuqui and the casual STEAK Tremont in offering that.
As Downtown reinvents itself post work-from-home revolution, Jacaj’s investment is notable. Born in Albania, she’s a city girl at heart, she says, which drives her to succeed in the city center.
“It’s so much harder Downtown to run a business. I think that’s why,” she says. “But I love that hectic city life. Growing up in Europe, that’s the life you’re used to, the noise.”
With the new Sherwin-Williams HQ set to bring thousands more people Downtown, Jacaj is betting on things getting even more hectic to support her formidable goal of a dining destination on her corner of West Sixth Street.
“My gosh, yes,” she says when asked if she’s optimistic about Downtown. “I’m hoping I’ll be part of bringing people to eat good food on this corner. When you make a good restaurant, have good food and service to offer, and give people their money’s worth, people show up.”
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