The owner of a defunct downtown restaurant that focused on specialty diets plans to open an Italian restaurant at the same location early next month. Pomodoro—Italian for “tomato”—will open at 15 E. Maryland St., which until June was occupied by Nook, a restaurant that served food catering to diners who were on the paleo, Whole 30 or keto diets. The space is in the same building as the Hampton Inn hotel at Meridian and Maryland streets.

Johnny Vassallo, who was involved in Nook and is a minority investor in Pomodoro, told IBJ this week that the new restaurant will focus on southern Italian dishes and will be “much more simple” to operate than Nook. Vassallo would not say if Pomodoro’s investors are the same as Nook’s.