In his family home on Ischia, chef Nino Di Costanzo brings together memories of Campania, an extraordinary garden and a contemporary approach to the food he grew up with.
There are restaurants created around a location, and there are restaurants for which the location is part of the reason they exist.
Daní Maison belongs to the second kind.
The restaurant occupies an old family home on Ischia, surrounded by a garden that feels almost like another room of the house. When chef Nino Di Costanzo opened Daní Maison here in 2016, he was not simply choosing a beautiful setting for a new restaurant. He was returning to a place already connected to his own history.
That return provides a useful way of understanding both the restaurant and the food served inside it.
From Ischia to the world — and back
Di Costanzo traces his earliest relationship with cooking to his mother and grandmother. His professional career later took him through the kitchens of renowned chefs including Gualtiero Marchesi and Juan Mari Arzak, as well as luxury hotels and restaurants outside Italy.
In 2008, he opened Il Mosaico at the Terme Manzi Hotel on Ischia and received his first Michelin star within six months. A second followed less than a year later.
At the height of that period, however, Di Costanzo chose a different direction. After spending time representing the traditional cuisine of his region internationally, he opened Daní Maison on 25 May 2016.
The location was personal: the house had belonged to his family.
For Di Costanzo, choosing a home rather than a conventional restaurant space was part of the idea. He describes it in terms of history, roots and hospitality — creating an intimate environment while placing the guest at the centre of the experience.
A house surrounded by a garden
The sense of entering a private world begins outside.
Paths run between mature trees, sculpted plants, ceramics, water and artworks. By night, discreet lighting changes the character of the landscape, while during the day the garden opens towards the surrounding greenery of Ischia.
But it is not simply decorative. Aromatic plants grown around the property are used in the kitchen, making the garden part of the restaurant’s culinary environment as well as its setting.
That relationship between nature, design and food can also be seen in the presentation of the dishes. Flowers, leaves, branches and specially made ceramics extend some compositions far beyond the conventional plate.
Inside, the restaurant remains deliberately intimate. The dining spaces combine natural materials, contemporary details and ceramics, while a chef’s table offers a direct view into the kitchen.
The boundary between house, garden and restaurant is therefore never particularly rigid — and that is very much the point.
Tradition in motion
For all the visual complexity of Daní Maison, Di Costanzo describes the foundations of his cooking in relatively simple terms: ingredients, seasonality, Campania and memory.
His approach begins with traditional recipes and products but does not treat tradition as something that must remain unchanged. Instead, he reinterprets older dishes through contemporary techniques while trying to preserve the flavours, aromas and textures that made them recognisable in the first place. Even within a complex composition, he believes the identity of individual ingredients should remain clear.
Memory is particularly important.
Di Costanzo has described the emotional response of guests who recognise in his dishes flavours associated with their own childhood. For him, this is part of the purpose of cooking: not simply to reproduce a recipe from the past, but to create something new that can still awaken a familiar sensation.
The current menu shows how that idea works in practice.
Among the starters is Scampando... in the green (€95), while the first courses include Red prawn crests, lemon and yogurt (€45) and Chicken cacciatore tortellini, mushrooms and woodland flavors (€45). The latter is perhaps the clearest example of Di Costanzo’s approach: a familiar Italian preparation is carried into a completely different form while keeping the reference to chicken cacciatore at its centre.
Elsewhere, the menu moves freely between ingredients associated with land and sea: white rice with pecorino, bruschetta and sea urchins; gnocchi with crab, fig leaves and prickly pear paddles; or squid with caviar, egg and black pork.
Presentation adds another layer. Dishes may arrive across several vessels, on specially created ceramics or surrounded by botanical elements. Scampando... in the green makes that particularly visible, turning the presentation itself into a landscape of flowers, leaves and different serving pieces.
Even the more restrained compositions retain the same attention to form. Red prawn crests, lemon and yogurt places the dish at the centre of an almost entirely white setting, accompanied by separate elements of the presentation.
Yet the visual complexity follows the same principle as the cooking itself: transformation should not make the ingredients underneath it unrecognisable.
Daní Maison today
The restaurant currently offers a tasting experience called “Up to you, Chef! — A journey made on the spot”, priced at €280 per person.
There is also an à la carte option, with a minimum order of three dishes. Current prices range from around €40 for desserts and €45 for several first courses to €80 and above for some dishes depending on the ingredients.
Wine forms another substantial part of the experience. Daní Maison has a cellar of more than 3,000 labels, ranging from international names to smaller producers and wines from the surrounding region.
The restaurant is also a Dom Pérignon Dépositaire, and its current menu includes dedicated pairing experiences. The Harmony menus combine Di Costanzo’s food with different Dom Pérignon vintages, while Traveling with Ferrari explores vintages of Giulio Ferrari.
These are offered for two guests and sit well beyond the standard tasting-menu price: the current Harmony options range up to €7,600 for two, paired with Dom Pérignon Plénitude 3 1985.
Coming home
It would be easy to tell the story of Daní Maison through Michelin stars and elaborate plates. But its more distinctive story begins much earlier: with a chef learning flavours from his mother and grandmother on Ischia, leaving the island to build a career and eventually returning to create something of his own.
The family house became a restaurant. Its garden became part of the kitchen. Familiar Campanian flavours acquired new forms.
Di Costanzo’s cooking has travelled a long way from the food memories with which it began. At Daní Maison, the interesting part is how deliberately it continues to find its way back to them.
Planning a visit
Daní Maison is located at Via Montetignuso 4, 80077 Ischia, Naples, Italy.
Reservations are required and can be made through the restaurant’s website. The restaurant notes that the access road is particularly narrow and recommends contacting the team for directions if needed.
Daní Maison is closed on Mondays and on Tuesday at lunchtime. There is no formal dress code.
