The owner of this beloved Coral Gables restaurant has lost his life to COVID

Nino Pernetti had considered his legacy.

“As all of us deal with our own mortality, we start to think about what can be left behind to remember us by,” he wrote in the forward to his 2008 book, “Nino Pernetti’s Caffè Abbracci Cookbook.” It was more than a technical guide — it was a memoir, family tree, scrapbook and love letter from the man who would become one of Miami’s most famous and beloved restaurateurs.

“It is my hope and desire,” he continued, “that sharing my life’s journey with you will, in some way, make your love life and pasta a little better.”

It was, at its heart, an instruction manual for how to live life richly, fully — like Nino. It could serve as his eulogy.

Pernetti died May 31 after an 18-month struggle with the aftereffects of COVID-19, his older daughter, Tatiana Pernetti, said. He was 76. His family detailed Pernetti’s long fight in a January 2022 Miami Herald story, which described lasting damage to his lungs from the disease.

“My family is so grateful for everyone’s love and support over the last year and a half,” Tatiana Pernetti said. “It’s a testament to how loved my father was.”

‘This is live or die.’ Owner of this beloved Gables restaurant is fighting for his life

Pernetti was best known for his restaurant of the last 32 years, Caffe Abbracci, a place where presidents, actors and superstar athletes dined in anonymity, where business deals were struck in hushed library tones, and Pernetti greeted guests by their first name in one of seven languages.

Though Pernetti’s life led him to this quiet hideaway for the wealthy, where Ferraris and Rolls-Royces are parked nightly, it started unceremoniously stacked against him.

Pernetti was born in post-World War II Italy, in the tiny town of Campione, which was a 30-minute ride on his father’s bicycle from the nearest town. One of eight children, Pernetti lost his mother at age 3 when both contracted typhus. When Pernetti survived, doctors nicknamed him “cabrito,” little goat.

It was working in a small bed-and-breakfast in that touristy town, Limone — riding bike both ways at age 13 — where Pernetti developed an interest in hospitality. He used the job to pay for three years of high school in a town eight miles away, before enrolling in hospitality school, where he found he preferred dressing in sharp suits and working the front of the house to the kitchen.

He spent the next 15 years working in some of the top hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, mostly with Sheraton and InterContinental. He started with Frankfurt, Germany, at 20, then came a whirlwind that included England, the Bahamas, Afghanistan, South Korea, Malaysia, Belgium, Turkey, France and Venezuela — picking up new languages everywhere he went.

And he was always in search of knowledge. Pernetti was known to always be reading two books at a time, one non-fiction to learn something new, one fiction “when he wanted to give his brain a rest,” Tatiana Pernetti recalled. His Coral Gables condo was stacked with books. When he wasn’t playing tennis, he was listening to news programs, and always had to be home by 7 p.m. Sunday to watch “60 Minutes,” Tatiana recalled.

“My dad had a real love of learning,” she said.

Coral Gables was where he opened his first restaurant, Caffe Baci, in 1987, a lively spot where Miami’s affluent came to see and be seen. But when Pernetti opened Caffe Abbracci two years later just a few blocks away, he found guests preferred to dine wherever he was situated. Nino was the draw.

He realized he preferred the more intimate Abbracci and closed Baci to focus on giving his diners all of himself.

Pernetti projected an air of discretion, personally and at his restaurant. When someone famous was dining at the best table, inside the dining room to the left of the door, he stationed an extra waiter to intercept autograph seekers.

Yet he was just as likely to sit with parties throughout the night, “as if you were his brother, sitting in his house,” Loris Curzio, the manager for more than 31 years, recalled.

Nino Pernetti hosting guests at his beloved restaurant, Caffe Abbracci in Coral Gables.
Nino Pernetti hosting guests at his beloved restaurant, Caffe Abbracci in Coral Gables.

The late Knight Ridder chairman and former Miami Herald publisher Alvah Chapman Jr., Pernetti’s neighbor at the Grove Harbour condos for decades, once said, “You know you have arrived when you get to sit in [developer] Armando Codina’s seat at Caffe Abbracci.”

But that discretion was in one way a fatal flaw. Pernetti contracted COVID-19 in December 2020, just days after a vaccine he had been anticipating was announced. He told no one for more than a week, until he was admitted to Mercy Hospital the first week of January 2021.

He never went home.

Pernetti bounced between the hospital and rehab facilities as his health waxed and waned, his family told the Herald in the deeply revealing story of his struggle. He celebrated his 76th birthday at Jackson Memorial in July 2021, where he lost nearly 50 pounds at one point. He needed a tracheotomy to help him breathe with lungs riddled with fibroids and scar tissue caused by the coronavirus.

Yet even at the hospital, he continued reading voraciously and sending texts to his managers at Caffe Abbracci when he couldn’t speak.

Well-wishers kept in touch with the family, including friends he made at the many charities he gave to, including Jackson Memorial and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

“I admired, respected and loved Nino for a third of a century, from the very first months of our coming to Miami,” said David Lawrence Jr., retired Herald publisher and chair of The Children’s Movement of Florida. “Getting to know Miami was, in significant measure, getting to know Nino.”

The Miami-Dade County Commission proclaimed March 14, 2022, Nino Pernetti Day, and presented a plaque to his daughters, Tatiana and Katerina, as well as his ex-wife Marlén Pernetti, who became his primary caregiver during his illness. And Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago wrote on his social media he will propose naming the stretch of Aragon Avenue outside his restaurant Nino’s Way.

Tatiana Pernetti, who has been working at the restaurant in between attending Georgetown law school, said she and her sister have committed to continue running Caffe Abbracci.

Pernetti is survived by siblings Diego, Olivo and Lucia in Italy, and his daughters, Tatiana and Katerina, in Miami. He was preceded in death by his brothers Plinio, Carlino, Bruno and Massimo, his parents, Vittorio and Elda, and the stepmother who raised him as her own, Teresa.

Funeral services are pending.