Exclusive: Chef Andrew Smith’s Isla is Targeting Early Summer Opening
Learn what Isla diners can expect and see renderings of the forthcoming Merion Village restaurant.
Hi Foodletter friends, a quick note…
We love our free subscribers, but you can enter to win something special if you upgrade to a monthly or annual paid subscription this week!
On Monday, March 24, at 9 a.m., we’ll enter all paid Foodletter subscribers into a random drawing to score two seats to one of Isla’s private soft opening parties. We’ll announce the winner in our March 25 issue. If you want to see chef Andrew Smith’s new restaurant, Isla, before it opens to the public, you won’t want to miss this opportunity.
Chef Andrew Smith’s Isla is Targeting Early Summer Opening in Merion Village
By Erin Edwards
In mid-January I visited the Merion Village space that will soon become Isla, the first restaurant from chef Andrew Smith and his wife, Devoney Mills. Construction for the fine-dining restaurant had yet to begin, but there in the middle of the scuffed checkered floor stood four empty Champagne bottles—remnants from an impromptu celebration the night before. Smith and Mills had finally secured the loan they needed to open Isla and had decided to celebrate with a few friends.
It’s been a two-year-plus journey since the couple first announced Isla. Finally, this highly anticipated restaurant from one of the city’s most talented chefs is happening—just not along the same timeframe nor in the location they had first intended. (Smith and Mills were originally going to open Isla near their Westgate home.)
Interviewed by phone this week, Smith says Isla is about halfway through construction at 116 E. Moler St., the same building as Jennings Java Coffee Roasters and the wedding venue The Century. Isla is targeting an early summer opening following a series of private soft opening events.
Isla marks Smith’s first reentry onto the public restaurant scene since the Oregon-born chef left his executive chef post at Rockmill Tavern in 2018. In the meantime, he and Mills have developed a loyal fanbase through Roys Ave, a ticket-based supper club hosted in their Westgate home, and they have no doubt influenced a surge in supper club-style projects around Columbus.
The restaurant industry has changed markedly since 2018, and so has Smith. This time around, he’s determined not to return to the same kind of restaurant life he had before, when he was executive chef at restaurants like Rockmill Tavern, Philco, The Rossi and Salt & Pine. Without other investors involved, how Isla operates will be on his and Mills’ own terms, with one key aspect of that will be Isla’s focus on experiential, communal dining.
“Yeah, it's a restaurant, [but we also want guests] to feel like, ‘I'm in someone's home.’ We're gonna try to achieve that as best we can. I think everybody sitting around the same table also provides a home feel,” Smith says. “Communal dining isn't for everyone, and that's totally fine, but that's what we do. We want people to get out of their comfort zones for an evening and remember something and make some friendships.”
What to Expect at Isla
Isla will be open three days a week–Wednesday, Friday and Saturday–for two dinner seatings of 14 guests, with a menu of seven to eight courses. “There will be explanations in between courses,” Smith says. “It is very much an extension of our supper club.”
Thursdays will be reserved for one chef’s counter seating of six guests. The couple also plans to host special wine dinners, guest chef dinners, the odd brunch and private events as well.
Diners will enter the restaurant off South Fourth Street to a small lounge area with a walkup bar, a handful of seats and Mills’ blue couch. Thanks to Mills’ eye for design and green thumb, there will likely be lots of greenery in the space, too.
Running Isla’s beverage program will be Mills and longtime Columbus bartender Ben Griest, whose impressive resume includes Understory, Giuseppe’s Ritrivo, The Citizens Trust, Veritas, Comune and Curio.
Beyond the lounge will be the dining room, arranged with tables for communal dining for 14. Behind that will be the chef’s counter facing the kitchen.
Indeed, with a chef’s tasting menu and only two seatings of 14 a night, Isla is a different kind of restaurant than the one Smith probably would have opened several years ago, before he and Mills honed their supper club format.
“I think [the restaurant industry] is always evolving, but right now, I don't even know what direction it's going in. I do know that what we offer is an experience and a memory, and that is something completely different,” he says, noting how tough a more traditional restaurant can be to operate—from not knowing how many diners to expect on a given night, how many staff to schedule or how much food to order.
“I feel like those things are starting to spiral out of control. Especially from a work environment standpoint, it's becoming more and more difficult for people to actually want to be in a restaurant and work in a normal restaurant. That being said, there are some people in our city that are still doing a very good job with that format. I'm not trying to knock anybody. It's just not for us anymore.”
Read Erin’s 2023 Columbus Monthly profile of chef Andrew Smith here.
Notes
Around the Columbus Food & Drink Scene
Cincinnati’s Marx Bagels will soon fill the Block’s Hot Bagels space at 6115 McNaughten Road. Block’s closed on March 2 following the death in January of Block’s founder Hal Block. The beloved bagel shop was in business for 58 years. Marx Bagels, which is located in the Blue Ash suburb of Cincinnati, has a fascinating shared history with Block’s. Columbus Jewish News has more here.
And now for a little shameless self promotion … Columbus Food Adventures has been nominated for the second year in a row for Best Food Tour in USA Today’s 10Best Reader Choice Awards. (In 2024, Columbus Food Adventures took home the No. 1 spot.) Readers can vote once a day for their favorite food tour; voting continues through 11:59 a.m. Monday, April 14. The top 10 winners will be announced April 23. Several other Columbus businesses have been nominated for 10Best in other categories, including Budd Dairy for Best Food Hall and Worthington Farmers Market for Best Farmers Market.