Dave Shah & Camilla Caremoli: One Unforgettable Restaurant Beats Twenty

What if the operators most likely to build something unforgettable are the ones who have never run a restaurant?

Dave Shah and Camilla Caremoli had never worked a shift in hospitality before opening CasaDamí. Dave built a global tech studio and thinks in brand. Camilla comes from four generations of an Italian food family and thinks in operations. A year in, they’ve built the kind of room a community actually shows up for.

In this conversation, we get into why they chased one unforgettable location instead of twenty, how they learned to separate real feedback from noise, and why the relationships built inside a room outlast any menu, wine list, or buildout.

If you’re an operator who believes experience is the only edge that counts, this one will challenge you.

That’s Dave Shah and Camilla Caremoli. To learn more about CasaDamí, visit casadami.com.

The Playbook Takeaways

1. One unforgettable room beats twenty forgettable ones. Dave and Camilla deliberately chased a single location worth remembering rather than a footprint, and a year into CasaDamí it is the room a community actually shows up for.
2. Learn to separate real feedback from noise. Coming in as outsiders meant everything sounded like advice; the skill they had to build was deciding which signals to act on and which to let pass.
3. Complementary thinking beats matched experience. Dave built a global tech studio and thinks in brand; Camilla comes from four generations of an Italian food family and thinks in operations. Neither had worked a hospitality shift before opening, and the split is the point.

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About the Author: Josh Kopel is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur, coach, and host of the FULL COMP podcast. More about Josh · the podcast · learn with Josh.