(Image: Bar Cantinetta)

(Image: Bar Cantinetta)

Bar Cantinetta has moved up.

Shuttered in Madison Valley in 2023, the bar is the latest addition to Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E, debuting this week in a beautiful buildout of the showpiece corner restaurant spot in the Capitol HIlltop mixed-use development.

“Cantinetta is known for honoring Tuscan culinary traditions with hand-made pastas and seasonal, locally sourced ingredients from the Pacific Northwest,” one announcement reads.

CHS reported a year ago October on the plans for the project as the restaurant family prepared to reopen the popular bar that previously been part of the area.

The corner used to be the site of the neigbhorhood’s HIlltop Service Station.

Cantinetta owner Trevor Greenwood knows the Central Seattle food and drink scene well. The original Bar Cantinetta closed in 2023 after a decade serving Madison Valley.

Greenwood and Cantinetta’s Wade Moller also operated Chavez on 12th Ave for five years before splitting up their business holdings. The location in a 12th Ave microhousing development from original Melrose Market developer Scott Shapiro rose above the burial grounds for the old Capitol Hill Market and was transitioned to the upscale and well regarded Violet helmed by Moller and chef William Belickis.

Greenwood has carried on with the Wallingford original plus a Cantinetta in Bellevue, plus family additions Como and El Encanto in Kirkland.

Bar Cantinetta was born as a smaller take on the Cantinetta food family concept but you’ll still find a robust kitchen including a menu of antipasti, primi, pizza, and secondi.

Now Bar Cantinetta is reborn. Its arrival on 15th brings a new flavor to the street’s finer Italian dining. Up the street, the Ethan Stowell restaurant group runs a complex home to a Rubinstein’s Bagels and a Capitol Hill location of his Rione XIII brand that debuted in the converted former gift and homewares store Tilden in 2012. You can now pair Rione XIII’s Roman take on the cuisine with the Tuscan flavors of Bar Cantinetta.

The new Bar Cantinetta is part of busy days on 15th Ave where a major redevelopment will eventually reshape the street. In the meantime, temporary tenants like Punk Rock Flea Market and Haunted Burrow Books are keeping the area lively.

There are also longer-term investments like Mac and Milo’s Barbershop that has opened in the former Casita International Gift Shop space.

Work is also finally in motion again to add another new long-term addition to the street. CHS reported here a year ago on the new $2.1 million property deal for 100-year-old former Coastal Kitchen building where food truck-born Fire Tacos & Cantina is planning to expand from its Alki original. That project is sill reportedly in motion and will bring another new food and drink opening to the street.

There will also be new spaces — in a legendary old bar — ready to make new home for 15th Ave E businesses. CHS reported here on the plan to split the former Canterbury into two commercial spaces across the street from the new Bar Cantinetta.

In the meantime, Bar Cantinetta appears to be settling into its new home on its corner of 15th and Mercer.

Bar Cantinetta is now open at 555 15th Ave E. Learn more at cantinettausa.com.

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