With six VineRoutes Restaurant Awards, the duo’s Liberty Entertainment Group sets a new benchmark for excellence — blending heritage, innovation, and world-class wine programs
You wouldn’t expect Nadia and Nick Di Donato to know stillness. Over the last 40 years, the creative minds behind Liberty Entertainment Group built and bloomed an entertainment empire, which spans several Michelin-starred restaurants and iconic Italian wine bars. There’s a historic castle, a 15,000-square-foot sushi and steak house, and, as of 2025, they also oversee the culinary program at a concert stadium, which serves up to 50,000 people on any given evening.
But as they sit across from me in an alcove of Bovine Wine Club, they are calm and cool. Phones are facing down, time is irrelevant. “Shall we have some lunch Chablis?”
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By dictionary definition, the two are restaurateurs. But, as VineRoutes has understood, that term doesn’t nearly encompass their reach. They’re architects, brand builders, and alchemists of experiences. They restore heritage buildings, single-handedly define Toronto’s clubbing scene, and the city’s foremost entertaining experts.
Their portfolio is expansive and abundant, traversing 500,000 square feet of hospitality space, from clubs and wine bars, to stadiums and entertainment experiences. They’re wizards with wine, able to build serene respites for serious wine nerds (like Bovine Wine Club) but also blow-out, brilliantly opulent clubs. They brought to life Michelin-starred restaurants with balletic services and made concert dining cool again. Essentially? Liberty Entertainment Group’s energy radiates from almost every corner of the city.
Photo of Nick Di Donato by Ethan Shaw Door24 Luxury Videography and Photography.
Nick Di Donato is a career engineer (formerly Imperial Oil) but a born-and-bred industry kid, who grew up working in his parent’s restaurant. Nadia handles creative vision. She’s a seasoned designer with a pedigreed eye, who knows how to conjure spaces from empty rooms to immersive experiences.
Which isn’t an easy feat looking at the spaces Liberty Entertainment Group inhabits.
The Di Donatos don’t just look for empty restaurants when opening a new space–that would be too easy. “We look for locations with personality,” says Nick. Former banks, castles, train stations. “Heritage sites are part of our DNA.”
DaNico inhabits a heritage bank. Don Alfonso 1890, the undulating space at the top of the Westin Castle. Casa Loma, which needs little introduction—a grand stone castle perched on a hill overlooking downtown. When the space was presented to them a decade ago, it had sat dormant for nearly 70 years, save for tours. Their vision was to transform it into an event space and community hub, with restaurants that matched its grandeur.
Casa Loma is now an event space and community hub.
But working with such pedigreed spaces isn’t always easy. There’s zoning, permits, and protection laws surrounding heritage spaces to navigate. This isn’t a hindrance to the duo. It’s a creative challenge.
To build BlueBlood Steakhouse in Casa Loma, they had to erect fake walls—you can’t alter or affix anything to the existing architecture. They couldn’t run exhaust vents through the roof for the kitchen, so they dug deep into the ground.
Their Union Station projects—Bovine Wine Club and Blue Bovine Steak + Sushi House—had equally irksome preservation laws to work around. They couldn’t put up a sign guiding guests to the space so a gilded bull—a nod to Wall Street—sits outside the building.
Award of Distinction winner Blue Bovine Steak + Sushi House. Photo by Ethan Shaw Door24 Luxury Videography and Photography.
In the wine club, where the city’s top collectors hang out and cult producers come to host dinners and tastings, the maze of pipes and vents that run through the ceiling needed to be accessible to maintenance. Nadia designed gilded cages, which nod to the designs of the station’s historic clock but can be removed with ease.
The work is worth it—it allows them to contribute to the city’s heritage, restore the glory of historic spaces and open the doors of these places to more people.
Casa Loma isn’t just for fine dining. Nadia has brought to life outdoor summer events (like an Abba night, that pulled 1,000 Torontonians to the gardens on a Monday night), a month-long horror show, and a grand Christmas installation. “Everything we do contributes to Toronto as a whole,” she says. “We’re born and raised here. As a company, we want to infuse and contribute to the city’s cultural scene.”
Nadia Di Donato does all the interior design work for Liberty Entertainment Group’s restaurant spaces.
“I feel like the right thing to do with heritage sites—hospitality allows more people to see them,” says Nick. “Get more people to experience a heritage space.”
This nimbleness is a skill they’ve had to flex a lot recently. When Covid hit, all their spaces shuttered. Instead of sitting idly, they made moves—launched a calculated expansion.
“It was a catalyst—restaurants were hurt, but so were landlords,” says Nadia. “All of a sudden, opportunities like Union Station, which would not have come to fruition in normal times, came online.”
When Don Alfonso’s initial location, opened in 2018 in the Consumer’s Gas building, got entrenched in landlord woes, a spot opened up in the revolving Westin Harbour Castle. They took it.
Part of their secret sauce to success is also an inane ability to predict trends well before they happen—a culinary clairvoyance.
“Toronto needed a whole new resurgence of fine dining,” says Nick. “For a while, that fine dining had fallen off—the focus was more casual restaurants.” Nick and Nadia knew when lockdown ended, Torontonians would crave revelry and luxury. “After Covid, we knew people would come back like a roaring 20s after shutdown. People would really want to experience dining at its best again.” They wanted to be there, tablecloths ironed, cellar stocked, and glassware polished, to welcome them in.
So, they opened DaNico and revived Don Alfonso in a new location. Within a year, both were crowned with a Michelin Star.
As we roll out the inaugural edition of VineRoutes’ Restaurant Awards, it’s clear they are the real deal—intensely creative, passionate restaurateurs with a commanding knowledge of what the city needs.
Inhabiting an old heritage bank space, DaNico Restaurant is a Vine Award winner in 2025 for Best in Distinction.
All of this is most evident in the wine programs. Across all locations, wine picks flirt through regions and styles, eschewing convention to offer up excellence to the customer. “Toronto is very discerning,” says Nadia. “Even if you bring in a big brand, it’s not a guarantee it will be successful. To win over the Toronto patrons, you have to be the real deal in what you deliver.”
Which is why the Liberty Entertainment Group has earned our top honours. BlueBlood Steakhouse, home to 4,890 bottles with a wealth of Canadian options, has earned a Vine Award – for Best in Distinction.
Don Alfonso 1890, the acclaimed Canadian outpost from world-renowned chefs Alfonso and Ernesto Iaccarino has earned the title of Best Italian Restaurants in the World, Outside of Italy, a Michelin Green Star, and now, a VineRoutes Award of Distinction. Cibo Wine Bar, with locations on King Street and Yorkville, earned an Award of Distinction.
Vine Award winning restaurant BlueBlood Steakhouse is set within the historic Casa Loma.
Blue Bovine Steak + Sushi House’s list trots through cult sakes and half bottles, which are more amenable to pairing through multiple courses. They pull in legendary makers of Burgundian Chardonnay, vintage Champagne, aged rose, and a textbook-style list of Napa cabernet legends. It’s been recognized with the Award of Distinction.
And at DaNico, also a VineRoutes Vine Award Winner for Best in Distinction, the wine list is a playground for oenophiles. The by the glass is extensive, ready to pair with everything and anything, spanning richly golden wines grown by nuns in Lazio, to elusive and well-loved Chianti Classico. Discerning drinkers will fawn over the sommelier selections, which highlights things like a flight of Barolo crus, presented side by side. To keep each experience inclusive, zero-proof sparkling and whites are available for the drivers or non-imbibers.
You’d think with such an expansive and explosive portfolio, the Di Donatos would step back and breathe. But it’s not in their DNA.
They’ve got a Yorkville lounge opening up—a fix for the lack of opulent, late-night energy that the moneyed neighborhood is lacking. They’re at the Rogers Center—serving thousands upon thousands of people across lounges and quick-service stands, curbing the thought that concert food is merely an afterthought. Next up, Prince Edward County.
Torontonians? Ready your palates.
– Kate Dingwall is a contributing editor with VineRoutes
