Restaurateurs Mia and Justin Devillier have opened Daughter’s Neighborhood Italian in the former Upperline Restaurant building at 1413 Upperline Street, putting a new operator into one of Uptown’s best-known restaurant addresses. The space housed JoAnn Clevenger’s Upperline from 1983 for nearly four decades.

The couple, who own Devillier Hospitality Group and La Petite Grocery, converted the building into a roughly 100-seat restaurant with several dining areas. The upper floor holds private dining space, including a room that seats up to 40 guests or holds 60 for receptions, giving the operator an events revenue line alongside regular dinner service.

Local architecture and interior design firm Studio West handled the design, with Arch Builders as general contractor. The renovation kept the building’s original wood paneling, its confetti-colored terrazzo floors, and the historic Art Deco light fixtures that hung in Upperline, and layered in new color, floral wallpaper, and personal photographs and objects from the Devilliers’ family.

The restaurant is named for the Devilliers’ three daughters and the daughter of business partner Joel Dondis. James Beard Award-winning chef Justin Devillier is returning to the kitchen full time after several years overseeing culinary operations across the group, cooking Italian American dishes built around Gulf Coast ingredients and a wood-fired oven. Daughter’s is deeply personal for us, Mia Devillier said.

The restaurant is open Thursday through Monday for dinner. Devillier Hospitality Group says it has additional ventures in development, and the couple brings more than 45 years of combined front- and back-of-house experience to the expansion.

The reopening keeps a long-running restaurant address in restaurant use rather than letting it convert to another purpose, a meaningful outcome on a largely residential Uptown block. It also continues a pattern visible across the city this fall, as established operators take over well-known but vacant hospitality spaces, from the Devilliers on Upperline Street to Crew Hospitality’s Holywater on Conti Street and the new tenant lined up for the former Tsunami space at 601 Poydras.

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