Sicilia Mia

Address: 4536 South Highland Drive

Telephone: 801-274-0223

Website: siciliamiautah.com

District: Millcreek

 

“Once we opened, I gave every minute, every second of my life to the restaurant to make sure that it would succeed.” For Giuseppe Mirenda, Sicilia Mia was never simply the opening of a restaurant. It was the realization of a family dream that began long before Salt Lake City, and long before he was old enough to sign a lease or speak English. The roots of that dream stretch back to Palermo, Sicily, where food was woven into daily life so completely that family, work, and cooking were inseparable.

Giuseppe grew up surrounded by people who made their living through food. His grandmother ran a market called Frutta e Verdure with his uncle, a place filled with fruits, vegetables, and simple prepared foods. Other family members ran a restaurant. Another was a fisherman. Everywhere he turned, there were ingredients, meals, and the daily rhythm of people feeding one another.

“Every day after school, I would get dropped off at the restaurant.” That routine began when Giuseppe was very young. During the week, he would go from school to the family restaurant, do his work there, and stay until it was time to go home with his grandmother who had ended her day at the market. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, he remained until closing, helping with whatever small tasks he could. By the time he was seven, the restaurant had already become the place where he felt most at ease. By thirteen, he was spending time in the kitchen, cutting ingredients, and learning by watching. By fourteen he was in culinary school in Italy, preparing for the life he already knew would be his. “My whole family was in the restaurant business, so I knew that that is where I was going to be.”

Then, at sixteen, everything changed. In 2012, Giuseppe moved to Utah with his mother Margherita, his father Francesco, his grandmother Fina, and his uncle Angelo. The decision came from both economic pressure and the hope of building something new. Sicily was beautiful, but life there had become increasingly complicated, and the family wanted the chance to bring their culture and food somewhere else. For Giuseppe, the idea of change felt less frightening than energizing. “Changes actually excite me, because I always look forward to something even better.”

Gieussepe arrived not knowing English, so he enrolled right away in English classes through Granite School District while the family worked in restaurants. He learned the language quickly and became the one who could help bridge that gap. But even while working for others, the larger goal remained clear. The family had come to build something of their own. That happened quickly. In 2014, they acquired a former pie shop. 

In 2015, they opened Sicilia Mia. Giuseppe was only nineteen years old. The early days came with plenty of challenges. There were rules the family did not yet understand, including liquor licensing. Giuseppe took responsibility for completing the paperwork without realizing he had to be twenty-one. There were cultural differences, language barriers, and the pressure of opening a restaurant so young. “People were warning us at the beginning that our menu is too big, too Italian, too traditional for Salt Lake City, but I did not know how to cook American Italian food.” So, Giuseppe and his family trusted what they knew and loved, believing that others would taste the difference.

Sicilia Mia was built the same way Giuseppe had grown up - as a genuine family effort. In the beginning, he cooked alongside his father and another Italian chef. His mother helped run the front of the house. His grandmother made sure the recipes were done the right way and served as the keeper of standards. His uncle made the pizza. Everyone had a role. Everyone was invested. The response was immediate. "Within about six months, reservations were booked two weeks out." What had begun as a leap of faith quickly became a neighborhood favorite. Sicilia Mia was not trying to imitate anyone. It was simply bringing Sicily to Salt Lake in the way Giuseppe’s family knew best, through food rooted in tradition and served with sincerity.

Today, in 2026, the restaurant still feels like the family’s first child. Smaller than their other restaurant in Millcreek - Antica Sicilia - with room for about seventy guests, it remains deeply personal to Giuseppe. It is where so much began, and where many of the restaurant’s best-loved dishes first found their audience.

One of the biggest favorites remains the carbonara, finished inside a wheel of twenty-four-month-aged Parmigiano. Another dish especially close to Giuseppe is the tagliolini ai frutti di mare, a seafood pasta that connects directly to the flavors of his childhood in Sicily where seafood always found its way into the cooking. That sense of origin runs through everything. Even the name says so. Sicilia Mia means “My Sicily,” a simple and heartfelt way of keeping home close.

And at the center of it all is family, not as a concept, but as a way of life. Giuseppe met his wife Elsa in 2018 when she came to dinner with friends at their restaurant Dolce Sicilia in Sugar House. (It closed during Covid.) It was his birthday. He was helping in the dining room that night and felt a connection right away, but stayed professional and did not ask for her number. Later that same evening, while he was out celebrating his birthday, he ran into her again downtown. This time, they exchanged numbers, and as he puts it, they never stopped seeing each other. Elsa, whose own father was also a chef, now works alongside Giuseppe behind the scenes, while their children, Sofia and Luca, have become part of the warm family presence guests have come to know.

For all the restaurants Giuseppe now helps lead, Sicilia Mia remains the place where the dream first took shape. It was the restaurant born from youth, instinct, tradition, and an extraordinary amount of work. It was the first proof that Salt Lake was ready to embrace the food his family had carried with them from Palermo. And it remains, all these years later, a place where that first leap of faith still matters. “That was the first restaurant that we opened. It will always be our baby.”