For a chef whose résumé includes Michelin recognition, global expansion and viral fame, opening a New York-style red-sauce Italian restaurant in Jupiter might look like a retreat from the centers of gravity that once characterized a career.
Joe Isidori does not call Arthur & Sons’ Jupiter location a passion project, though it would qualify as one. He calls it something else.
“This will be my clubhouse,” he says, standing in the nearly finished Jupiter dining room with an expected Feb. 27 opening, adjusting framed photos as his stepfather Don Beniamino, a millwork expert, fine-tunes the booth woodwork.
It is a return to family, to a style of cooking he once avoided, and to a north Palm Beach County town that has quietly anchored his life for more than two decades.
He lives seven minutes away and plans to be here most of the time, unusual for someone of his stature.
Celeb chef Joe Isidori’s Jupiter bet with new Italian restaurant
Isidori’s connection to Jupiter began in the early 2000s, when his mom and stepfather bought a home in Abacoa. He was working in Miami then later in New York City, building a career that took him around the world. Jupiter was less a destination than a constant — a place he returned to between jobs and chapters in an unsettled life.
That constancy grew more evident when a 2004 phone call changed his career: Isidori was hired by the Trump Organization as executive chef for Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
When that project was delayed, he was appointed Mar-a-Lago’s top toque in Palm Beach.
Through 2010, he opened multiple Trump Organization properties, including the Michelin-star winning Trump DJT at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, and traveled relentlessly.
Jupiter became his base. Even then, he knew why the town mattered. “Because Jupiter is the best place in all Palm Beach County,” he says. “It’s the hidden gem. It fits my style, my vibe, my people.”
What’s in a name?
Arthur & Sons is named with deliberate literalness. Isidori’s grandfather was Arthur Joseph. His father was Arthur Joseph. Isidori is Joseph Arthur. His son is Roman Arthur.
“When people come in, they go, ‘Who’s Arthur?’” he says. “My grandfather and my father. Roman says, ‘We’re the sons!’”
The lineage matters; the restaurant is built on it in name, structure, portion size and philosophy. Arthur & Sons is truly family-style, what Isidori grew up with.
“I put the plate on the table and you eat,” he says.
The menu centers on New York-style Italian classics, the dishes that sustained his family’s New York restaurants, where he started cooking as a kid.
“My father told me chicken parm pays the bills.”
For much of his career, Isidori resisted that inheritance. After training at the Culinary Institute of America and working in fine-dining kitchens, he spent years deliberately avoiding Italian food. He chased recognition, Michelin stars and the kind of acclaim that rewards technical ambition over nostalgia.
“I probably went a solid 12 years without cooking Italian food,” he says. “Never even thought about it.”
The turning point occurred with loss. At 32, Isidori’s father died in his kitchen suddenly at 65. Isidori, then a rising chef with packed dining rooms but no financial security, began to question his path.
“I woke up one day and said, ‘What the hell am I doing?” he says. He realized fine dining wouldn’t give him the life he wanted for a family, a home and stability.
He pivoted by launching Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, which started as a small Soho burger bar inspired by childhood lunches with his father. From New York City to Dubai, it became a global phenomenon. Isidori sold his stake in 2019.
A return to his cooking roots
With Black Tap behind him, only then did he return, intentionally, to New York-style Italian cooking but this time on his own terms.
Arthur & Sons first opened in New York City’s West Village in 2022, quickly gaining attention after a video of Isidori making tomato sauce went viral on TikTok.
“We were booked for six months,” he says.
The concept expanded and attracted celebrities but stayed rooted in family and familiarity.
Throughout all this, Jupiter remained home.
During the pandemic, Isidori, his wife and son left New York City to stay with his parents in Abacoa. What was meant as a temporary stay became permanent. They bought a house near his parents, cementing their place in Jupiter’s community.
Then came another rupture: On Christmas Eve in 2024, Isidori’s wife was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Treatment began and the couple reorganized their lives. Isidori restructured his work travels to be present. Jupiter turned essential, not just a refuge.
“How am I supposed to leave my family?” he says.
Soon after, when the chance came to take over the former Uncle Eddie’s, one of his favorite Jupiter hangouts, it was a no brainer.
All about authenticity
The Jupiter outpost is Isidori’s most personal version yet. Isidori designed the space and curated every object. The dining room seats about 130, with outdoor seating planned. A disco ball hangs overhead in a dark room with bold accents, iconic portraits and tactile details.
The point is not spectacle. It is presence.
“I want people to understand how real this is,” Isidori says. “This isn’t a big restaurant group opening something because Palm Beach is hot.”
He wants guests to feel the difference immediately. “When you walk through the door, you feel one thing,” he says. “Me.”
Isidori is clear that Arthur & Sons is not meant to follow trends or rankings. Its ambition is simpler and harder to execute: authenticity. A sense that the food, the room and the person behind it are aligned.
“You can have quality, decor, great staff,” he says. “But if there’s no authenticity, there’s nothing that really touches you and makes you want to come back.”
Jupiter, he believes, understands that instinctively. It’s why he didn’t choose West Palm Beach or Miami, though a west Boca Raton location is in the works for 2027.
It is why this restaurant, among all his expansions, will command the most of his attention and patrons can expect to see him in the kitchen.
Arthur & Sons is, ultimately, a stake in the ground not just professionally, but personally. It is a restaurant where Isidori can cook the food that raised him, honor the people who shaped him and be present for his family.
For Joe Isidori, that’s not a step back. It’s the point.
Diana Biederman is the Palm Beach Post’s food & restaurant writer. Care to share news tips about the local dining scene? Please send them to dbiederman@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
Dining and Cooking