History and Modernity Collide at Daniel Costa’s Restaurants

Over the past 15 years, chef and restaurateur Daniel Costa has turned his Italian heritage and his culinary talent into a suite of restaurants, bars and cafes, each an Edmonton hot-spot in its own right. The business started as a single restaurant — Corso 32 — then grew to include Uccellino and Bar Bricco, the latter of which eventually expanded to fill the Corso space.

When news broke that Costa would be opening three new businesses in the Citizen building on Jasper Avenue in 2024, many Edmontionians waited with bated breath for what flavourful concoctions the new restaurants would yield.

Equally anticipated were the spaces themselves. For his new restaurants, Costa worked with award-winning design firm Ste Marie Studio, who created three unique designs steeped in a feeling of history and romance — just like Costa’s food.

Naturally, he worked with them again when he decided to reimagine the space Uccelino once occupied into Rita Trattoria, his newest restaurant. Like their previous work, Rita feels warm and intimate, nostalgic in just the right way.

Last week, Ste Marie Studio won an award for their work on Mimi Bar at the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards.

We talked to Ste Marie’s senior designer David Boucher about transforming Rita Trattoria and about the studio’s work in Edmonton.

Edify‘s Interview with David Boucher

Edify: Ste Marie’s designs have been described as world building — something that is very apparent when you step into Rita Trattoria. But many Edmontonians already had a relationship with the space as Uccellino. How did you approach creating a distinct feel within the constraints of an existing space that many patrons were quite familiar with?

David Boucher: When we work in a space that already has history, the goal isn’t to erase what came before. It’s about listening to what’s already there and working with it. In this case, the familiarity of the space became an asset rather than a constraint. Many people in Edmonton already carried memories of Uccellino, but those memories lived mostly in the food and the experience, not the walls. The architectural framework was already strong. The height, the mezzanine, the bar that pulls you in. Our approach was to honour that existing DNA while transforming the atmosphere and sensory experience through material palette, lighting, and texture. We wanted people to feel like they were discovering something new, while still sensing the comfort of something known. It’s world-building within a familiar structure, where memory and new emotion overlap.

ZAyotte_Rita1 — Rita Trattoria interior

photograpy by Zachary Ayotte

Edify: Two of the defining elements that I noticed at Rita were the colour palette and the lighting choices. The room is warm and more dimly lit (in quite a flattering way), giving the space a feeling of intimacy and nostalgia. How did you come to the colour and lighting choices for the space?

Boucher: Colour and light are two of the clearest ways to shape how a place feels. We treat them as emotional tools rather than decoration. For Rita, we sought warmth and intimacy, something that felt like an antidote to Edmonton’s long winters. The colour palette draws on deep, familiar tones that could have existed in a family home decades ago, but feel fresh in how they’re used today. That connection to Chef Daniel Costa’s grandmother, Rita, guided a lot of the palette decisions and the sense of familiarity.

Lighting was equally intentional. We wanted to create small pockets of intimacy within the larger space. The warm, low lighting softens edges and blurs time. People relax, they stay longer, conversations deepen. It helps express that generosity and emotional warmth that define Italian hospitality.

Edify: How important was the lighting in defining, your other Daniel Costa spaces in Edmonton — Va!, Mimi and Olia?

Boucher: Across Daniel’s family of restaurants, lighting became a way to differentiate each space. Va! feels energetic and bright, built for quick movement and daytime flow. Mimi comes alive at night, with lighting that’s more dynamic and playful. Olia, on the other hand, is grounded and slower, built for long dinners and layered conversation. Lighting shifts the behaviour in each environment. It affects tempo, volume, and even how people experience the food. Each one speaks a different tone of the same language.

Edify: Va!, Mimi and Olia are unique neighbouring spaces that share some amenities. The three spaces feel specific yet cohesive. How did you approach designing three spaces in order to make them feel like distinct members of a family?

Boucher: Designing three adjoining spaces side by side meant defining their individuality through use and rhythm. They share a design philosophy about craft and hospitality, but each responds to its own purpose and tempo. Va! was conceived as a daytime spot that supports flow and efficiency. Mimi is designed for nightlife with cocktails, energy, music, and movement. Olia is slower and more intimate, with earthy materials and softer lighting. Together, they form a family of spaces that reflect different aspects of Italian dining culture. The coherence doesn’t come from sameness but from a shared set of values and attention to how people actually inhabit the space.

CONRAD BROWN - Ste Marie Mimi - HIRES - 2024-03-24 - 015 — MIMI interior

photograpy by Conrad Brown

Edify: Your work for Daniel Costa blends contemporary and classic details — a thread that seems to run through all your work. The result is a feeling of history, even in new spaces. How do you find the right balance between the present and the past?

Boucher: Balancing the past and the present is about emotion more than style. We’re drawn to details that carry a sense of craft or memory, but we reinterpret them through a contemporary lens. The goal isn’t to recreate history, but to layer it in as a material, allowing traces of the past to live alongside the present and give the space depth and texture without nostalgia. This can happen through material, tone, or story. It might mean keeping a small imperfection in the architecture that reveals what came before, or introducing an artwork or object that carries quiet provenance. This approach gives people an emotional foothold. They feel something familiar, even if they can’t identify why.

At Rita, artwork and found pieces sourced by Daniel and Craig from markets and vendors across Italy add both historical and geographical context, as well as a layer of personal history, to a contemporary architectural shell. An old schoolroom map of Italy, sketches, and paintings help bring the story to life and give the space a sense of accumulated memory. We hope that when people visit Rita, they feel as though they’ve known the place all along.

Edify: A large portion of your work is in hospitality, but your projects retain many of the properties of a well-designed home (lighting, material choices). How do you think about the distinction between commercial and residential spaces?

Boucher: We approach hospitality as a study of how people feel, not just how they move through space. We set out to design places that work well for service and flow, but still carry the ease and warmth of something familiar. Much of that thinking comes from the cues of home, how light moves across a surface, how texture softens a moment, how comfort invites people to stay longer than they planned. It’s not about making a restaurant or hotel look residential. It’s about translating the emotional logic of home into a shared, public setting. Lighting is layered to shift through the day. Materials are chosen for their texture and how they’ll age gracefully. Furniture is designed for both function and comfort. The best hospitality spaces borrow that intimacy and familiarity but heighten it. People feel held by the space while also pulled slightly out of their everyday world. When that happens, the experience becomes more than service, it becomes memory.