Chef Lhulier to open new Mediterranean eatery at Avenue North

Chef Robert Lhulier, a Wilmington-based restaurateur, signed a lease for an endcap unit at the Avenue North complex in north Wilmington with plans of bringing a Mediterranean eatery to the mix. l PHOTO COURTESY OF CHEF ROBERT LHULIER

WILMINGTON – A new palette of flavors is headed for New Castle County as restauranteur and Chef Robert Lhulier works to open his newest eatery in Wilmington – Sardella Mediterranean Cantina.

Lhulier signed the lease on July 30 for the new seafood-leaning cuisine experience which will be located in Delle Donne & Associates’ Avenue North complex at the former AstraZeneca Campus, just a few months after he announced his departure from the nearby Snuff Mill Restaurant, Butchery & Wine Bar. He helped open that restaurant in 2021 with David and Joanne Govatos and Bill Irvin.  

He currently operates the Brandywine Restaurant and works as its executive chef, roles he will maintain while working with developers, architects and designers to craft his new dining space at the 79-acre Avenue North campus.

Sardella Mediterranean Cantina will feature coastal flavors from areas like Greece, Spain and Sicily which help make up the Mediterranean flair he hopes to bring to Delaware alongside his creativity and many travels around the world.

“There’s a lot of vibrant cuisine from those regions,” Lhulier told the Delaware Business Times. “I want to keep it simple, but also provide the best quality that I can. I think consumers expect a lot more not only in quality, but in experience, and I can bring both of those to the table.”

Along with bringing his culinary vision to the 3,200 square foot end-cap unit at Avenue North, he expects to share it with about 25 to 30 employees. Its 20-foot ceilings, he added, will help highlight the feel for the space he is intentionally creating.

“I will entirely design the space myself. I’m in the midst of interviewing architects and design people now and we’ve had some good meetings. That’s very important because those people have to have the same vision you have to make it a success,” he said.

While he’s been on the hunt for a new restaurant location since he left Snuff Mill earlier this year, the choice to work with Avenue North was made easier because of its location and the professionals behind the scenes.

“I always wanted to be in north Wilmington because I thought it was a prime space to open a restaurant. There are so many communities and so many businesses. I looked at everything from existing restaurants to ones that were going to be shuttered and ones that were going to be built out,” Lhulier told DBT.

Avenue North is an ambitious plan at the former AstraZeneca campus in the Fairfax community, bought for $50 million in 2017. DDA had planned a 1.8 million square-foot mixture of office, retail and apartment housing to breathe new life in the property.

Those plans involve 12 new buildings, 360 new apartments, four streets, 10.4 miles of close access to outdoor recreational space and 10.5 acres of connected open space, according to its website, including the 12 story high 100,000 square-foot tower currently being constructed with two stories of retail space and ten stories of office space.

The choice to add his new restaurant to the mixed-use space, he added, became clear when he considered the physical location and his own past with the owners of Avenue North – the Delle Donne family.

“The conversation grew over the past few years since they started plans. It just made sense to me. There’s so much going on there,” he said. “Even if the restaurant would have been drawing only from the north Wilmington and Brandywine Hundred residences, the reality is that there are new residential properties going in there with probably around 400 new units and the critical mass draw of a gym, salon, Brew Ha Ha, other retail and offices in the area. I just saw it as a premium type of space to do a new restaurant.”

“I really hope that this restaurant gets embraced by the community from the start. What I’ve learned in the last four years or so is that Wilmington, and Delaware in general, they’re very passionate about food and wine dining. I would like to establish Sardella as a new spot families can go to and enjoy a meal. The competitive edge is really what drives a successful business,” he added.

Lhulier expects to open Sardella Mediterranean Cantina in about one year.