Bill Taibe opening new hi’Amba restaurant in Westport

A new restaurant that combines the flavors of several cultures will soon be opening up in Westport. 

hi’Amba, which will open at 33 Jesup Road in Westport, will be a bakery, cafe, and restaurant centered on the flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, according to a collaboration  Instagram post by both the lifestyle platform The Connecticut Edit and the restaurant’s official Instagram page. The restaurant is set to open in the early fall, the Instagram adds. 

Restaurateur Bill Taibe is behind the restaurant. Taibe opened the now-closed LeFarm in Westport in 2009, followed by The Whelk, a Westport seafood restaurant and oyster bar, and Kawa Ni, an izakaya-inspired Japanese pub that opened in Westport in 2014 and expanded to Denver in 2023. In 2020, he opened Don Memo, a restaurant inspired by Mexican culture and cuisine, in Westport’s historic town hall; however, it closed in 2025. Taibe was named the Connecticut Restaurant Association’s Restaurateur of the Year in 2021 and Kawa Ni’s Denver location was added to the Michelin Guide’s list of recommended restaurants in 2024.

If Oliver Putnam, Martin Short’s famously dip-loving character on “Only Murders in the Building,” ever makes it to Westport, he may have a new favorite restaurant. hi’Amba will offer house-made dips as well as house-made breads and pastries, Jerusalem bagels, pita, man’oushe, shakshuka, sandwiches, salads, house-made dips and spreads, according to CTBites. The sixth season of “Only Murders in the Building” will premiere Dec. 8 on Hulu.

Taibe told CTBites that hi’Amba will initially focus on breakfast and lunch and dinner service is expected to begin a few weeks after the restaurant opens and will include shareable dishes such as roasted fish and roasted chicken. 

“hi’Amba is about creating the kind of place you want in your neighborhood and can rely on every day,” Taibe said in the Instagram post. “You can come in for coffee and something warm from the oven, sit down for a great meal, meet friends upstairs for a bottle of wine, or grab dinner on the way home.”