There’s a secret hiding in Mikey & Madeline’s Candy Shoppe, past boxes of Cow Tales and Chick-O-Sticks in downtown Roseville. If an employee asks what kind of candy you’re looking for, that’s the cue to tell them the monthly password for Daniello’s , the multi-level speakeasy and steakhouse hidden behind the sweet storefront.
Opened at 229 Vernon St. at the end of 2022, Daniello’s is chef/owner Michael McDermott’s culinary playground, a more freewheeling effort than his neighboring Italian restaurant The Place . Named for his great-grandfather, it’s in a 100-year-old building replete with trap doors — relics, McDermott said, from a bootlegging past.
Give the right password listed online (October’s is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”) and you’ll be handed an oversized key to access Daniello’s downstairs lounge, a seductive space with high ceilings, chandeliers and leather furniture. That’s where most people enjoy dinner or drinks; VIPs can access an even swankier upstairs room lined with fuzzy Damascus wallpaper.
Still feeling like a kid in a candy shop? “Dino-motz” are Daniello’s marriage of mozzarella sticks and dino nuggets, fresh mozzarella cut and breaded by hand that’s formed into dinosaur shapes and fried.
But most offerings are high-end at Daniello’s, where ripped jeans, hoodies and cellphone use are banned. There’s the Porterhouse, two pounds of shareable grass-fed beef torched and carved tableside. McDermott sat on a waiting list for two years to get BMS 12 beef, the highest marbling grade there is, from Stone Axe Wagyu in Australia.
McDermott primarily started Daniello’s to have a place for concepts like “Primal Indulgence,” a multi-course dining experience meant to trigger all five senses. Customers eat with their hands throughout, and in the main course, don headphones playing orchestral music as McDermott drops food onto the table with the beat.
The downstairs bar has cocktails classics as well as bespoke options with Willy Wonka-inspired names, such as the “fizzy lifting drink” (vodka, Chambord, elderflower liqueur, blueberry-lavender syrup and Prosecco). A lion’s tail made with Whistle Pig Boss Hog IX rye whiskey ($850 per bottle), allspice, lime juice and Peychaud’s bitters may well be the capital region’s most expensive cocktail at $140.
It’s a concept as much for the chef as the customer. McDermott began working in restaurants at 16 years old and ground his way to age 50. Daniello’s is his creative expression in full, from the moment customers walk into the candy shop until they sneak out a back door…