Lucia Pasta Bar & The Art of Feeling Right at Home

February 11, 2026

On a busy night in Starland, the glow from Lucia spills onto the sidewalk long before you reach the door. Inside, the room hums with conversation, clinking glasses, and the soft rhythm of a chef who works in full view of everyone. It is tight, warm, and immediate. The kind of space where you can feel the personality in the walls and the intent behind every decision.

Behind the counter, you spot him. Kyle Jacovino, rolling, shaping, plating, looking up every few seconds to greet someone who just walked through the door. He has been in Savannah for almost a decade, but Lucia is the restaurant he has been carrying with him the entire time.

“I think pasta has been a part of my life for the past decade,” he says. “The Florence was the restaurant that brought me to Savannah. That was the dream for me. Pizza, pasta, charcuterie. Once we sold it and I had to start my own path, the goal was to bring that pasta and pizza back to Savannah.”

He opened Vittoria Pizza Napoletana first because he could afford to open it first. Pizza takes less money than a pasta bar.

Photos by Steve Vilnit

But the real plan was always this one. He kept it tucked in his pocket for years until the right moment, the right building, and the right people lined up.

That part of the story leads straight to the Starland Dairy.

“This spot is full circle,” he says. “Vittoria was originally supposed to be in the Starland Dairy. Nate and Maggie Fuller, owners of the Starland Dairy building, and I have been friends for over ten years. We have been trying to work together for a long time. Covid, money, timing, things fell through. But the stars finally aligned.”

Starland has been evolving one room at a time, one entrepreneur at a time, and Lucia drops into the neighborhood like it always belonged here. It is real, the kind of place creative neighborhoods grow around.

Kyle sees it every night.

“There are a lot of familiar faces. Old school regulars. New transplants.

When people walk in, they see me immediately,” he says. “They shake my hand. It feels like a rural neighborhood. High synergy. Natural.”

Natural is a word he returns to often, and when you sit in the room you understand why. Nothing about Lucia feels manufactured. It feels lived in even though it is new. The design has personality, not polish. The details are thoughtful, but they do not shout for attention.

Photos by Steve Vilnit

The space carries a quiet confidence, the kind that comes from someone who knows exactly what he wants a restaurant to feel like.

“This is what I do,” he says. “I cook pasta and pizza. This is part of my life. It is in my heart. So I wanted Lucia to feel like a second home for me. When you walk in, you see the bar, the chef, the cooks, everybody talking. It feels like a kitchen in someone’s house where people gather around the counter.”

Nate and Maggie Fuller helped bring that vision across the finish line.

“They were incredible,” he says. “If I needed a specific light fixture, Maggie would send me twenty options. The building already had so much natural character. The brick, the plaster, the floors. It all fit the old school Italian feel I wanted. The marriage of the historic space and my vision was seamless.”

But the heart of Lucia’s is not the design. It is the pasta.

And when Kyle talks about pasta, something in him sharpens.

“Making pasta by hand is a unique ability,” he says. “It is a ton of work. That is why you do not see a lot of restaurants doing it. I come in at nine and make pasta until four. Every piece is made by hand. Every day. It does not really exist in Savannah. It barely exists in America in the way people think it does.”

Many of the pastas on the menu have been with him for a decade or more, evolving as he evolved. They are not trends. They are companions. Dishes that traveled with him from restaurant to restaurant, waiting for the right room to finally call home.

Photos by Steve Vilnit

He does not boast about the labor. In fact, he steers away from it.

“I never want to sound like I am talking too much about the work,” he says. “But I do think we are a very special restaurant because making this amount of pasta by hand every day is just wild.”

Lucia is small by design. Around forty to fifty seats. Controlled. Predictable. Focused. A restaurant built for connection, not scale. And that approach carries straight into the team.

“I think the most amazing part of the first twelve weeks has been the team,” Kyle says. “Everyone wants to be here. Everyone knows what they do. Guests walk in and cannot believe we are new. They say the team looks like they have been working together for years.”

That does not happen by accident. It happens because the person leading the room built something that feels honest. Something rooted. Something with gravity.

A few blocks away, people will tell you Savannah is becoming a real food city. They will point to the chefs pushing ideas, the restaurants raising standards, the neighborhoods making room for craft. Lucia Pasta Bar is part of that shift. Not by chasing recognition, but by doing the work the right way. By cooking with intention.

Photos by Steve Vilnit

By creating a place where you come back not because everyone tells you to, but because it feels good to be there.

The thing is, you cannot fake that feeling. Plenty of restaurants try. They talk about being neighborhood spots, but it takes a particular kind of person to make it happen. Someone who is not trying to build a concept, but trying to build a home.

“This place is me, through and through,” Kyle says.

And when you sit down at Lucia Pasta Bar, you feel it.