Alberto Morello never shied from proclaiming that his lifelong goal was to open a Sicilian restaurant in honor of his upbringing on that Italian isle. But who knew this pensively jovial chef behind the Olio e Limone family of downtown Santa Barbara eateries wanted to be a professor of history, art, and culture as well?

In just my first few minutes of visiting Bedda Mia, the State Street restaurant that Alberto and his wife/business partner, Elaine Morello, opened two months ago, I learned that coral is Sicily’s home color, as reflected in the gold-red walls; that the folk-art-decorated Sicilian horse-drawn carts were “the Teslas of their time,” and that their colors and iconography turned into a fashion line by Dolce & Gabbana last year, as witnessed in the surrounding photographs;