A new Italian osteria has opened its doors in Upper Buena Vista, and it wants you to actually call the restaurant if you want a table. Storia, the latest project from restaurateur Andrea Fraquelli and chef Giulio Rossi, has settled into 5018 NE Second Ave. with a menu built on handmade gnocchi scampi, linguine alle vongole, and tagliatelle al ragù, alongside a firm refusal to take online bookings.
According to Miami New Times, Storia is a bistro created by Fraquelli and Rossi that leans into old-school hospitality touches, including a plan for staff to know guests by name and remember their favorite tables. Reservations go through a phone number, 728-229-4682, or an email address, and the restaurant will not accept bookings through a website or app. Fraquelli described the project in personal terms, saying Storia is a love letter to the restaurants he worked at or helped create.
The menu extends beyond its pasta trio to include beef carpaccio, zucchini fritti, crocchette cacio e pepe, and truffle arancini as starters, plus beef tagliata and branzino alla griglia among the mains. For two, Storia also offers veal Milanese and rib-eye steak specials, and the kitchen includes Rossi's signature ragù on the menu. The station's report notes that the restaurant uses old recipes whose essence is preserved even when presentation may differ from the originals.
A Wine Collection Ten Years in the Making
Storia's bar pours Italian cocktails including Aperol spritzes and negronis, but the bigger story is on the wine list. Fraquelli received 1,000 bottles from a friend's wine collection to sell and showcase at the restaurant, according to the same account, building out a list that includes eight white wines and eight reds along with rosé and sparkling selections.
The space itself carries the design fingerprints of Eduardo Suarez Designs and Cohere, the firm founded by Antoinette Marie Johnson, per the outlet's reporting. Suarez previously designed the minimal, dark interior of 3190, a 24-seat Coconut Grove lasagna bar that closed this June after operating as a spin-off of Cotoletta's off-menu Bolognese pasta, as detailed by Identità Golose. That closure came just two months before Storia opened, part of an evolving portfolio in which Fraquelli and his partners have tried and shelved single-item concepts even as the broader group keeps growing.
A Family Legacy Behind the Menu
Fraquelli is a third-generation restaurateur whose grandfather, Lorenzo Fraquelli, emigrated from Como, Italy, to London in the 1950s, worked at the Savoy Hotel, and co-founded the Spaghetti House restaurant chain, according to Identità Golose. That lineage runs through Fraquelli's Miami career: he worked at Cotoletta in Coconut Grove and San Lorenzo in Little River before opening Storia, per Miami New Times. Cotoletta, which opened in October 2024 with a fixed $80 meal for two centered on veal Cotoletta alla Milanese, won New Times' Best Restaurant award for Coconut Grove in 2025 and later expanded to a South Beach location known as Cotoletta SoFi, according to Food Republic.
Fraquelli co-founded the hospitality group 84 Magic Hospitality with partners Ignacio López Mancisidor and Mattia Cicognani to launch these streamlined Italian concepts across South Florida, per Entrepreneur. In May 2025, the trio launched San Lorenzo in Little River with a minimalist menu limited to four core options — meat, fresh catch, lobster linguine, or lamb — continuing a pattern of hyper-focused menus across different neighborhoods, Identità Golose reported.
Miami's Appetite for Simplified Dining
Storia's arrival lands amid a broader Miami trend toward single-item and ultra-reduced menu restaurants, as diners have sought simplified ordering and operators have aimed to cut kitchen complexity, according to Axios. Storia's approach, with its curated but expanded menu compared to Fraquelli's earlier ventures, still fits within that same appetite for pared-down, atmospheric dining rather than sprawling menus.
The neighborhood itself has a track record as an Italian dining destination. Upper Buena Vista, founded by Assi Aviv, was established as a bohemian, sanctuary-style retail and dining enclave built around a massive ancient banyan tree, Hoodline previously reported. Fraquelli has a decades-long friendship with Aviv, per Miami New Times' account. The enclave's Italian identity dates back to August 2018, when the team behind Downtown Miami's Fratelli Milano opened Vista, the neighborhood's flagship restaurant and rooftop cocktail bar, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage of that debut.
Storia now joins that lineage with its own welcome home signage greeting guests at the door. Between the phone-only reservation line, the 1,000-bottle wine collection, and a menu meant to echo the restaurants that shaped Fraquelli's career, the osteria positions itself as the newest chapter in a neighborhood that has quietly built a reputation for old-world Italian hospitality since 2018.
