Hidden gem in Charlotte’s Oakhurst neighborhood where the menu is as creative as the food
May 5, 2026
Vince Giancarlo is creating Lady Funari from kitchen memories of “mom-mom”
B-Side’s new pasta bar and caffé will open in the former Futo Buta space
by TM Petaccia
Like most Italian grandmothers, Claire Teresa Funari never wrote a recipe down in her life. If you asked, she might scribble a few notes on a card, “a bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense,” as her grandson Vince Giancarlo recalls, and then she would return to her stove.
What she did was cook. Each Sunday, often for a dozen or more people, she built meals that stretched across hours, sometimes the entire day. She tasted as she went, adjusted without measuring, and when it was time to eat, she rarely sat down with a plate herself. “She watched us eat,” Giancarlo says.
That loving approach — instinctive, generous, and centered on the joy of feeding others — now sits at the core of Lady Funari, the upcoming pasta bar and caffé from B-Side. The restaurant, in the former Futo Buta space along Charlotte’s light rail, is named not just in her honor but in recognition of her role.
“She’s the reason that I cook in general,” says Giancarlo, B-Side’s culinary director. “Everybody else was running around and I’m at her hip, trying to look over the stove. Eventually, when I was able to reach over the stove, she started to show me some things. It’s really where my love and passion for food started.”
Though Giancarlo’s career has taken him through multiple cuisines and concepts, Italian food has remained a constant thread. “Throughout my career, I’ve done so many different types of cuisine, but I always came back to Italian,” he says.
At Lady Funari, that through-line becomes the focus. The menu will be compact, about five pastas and a small selection of appetizers, cured meats, and vegetable dishes, reflecting both the size of the space and a deliberate emphasis on precision over volume. “We’re thinking about five pastas and then five-to-eight appetizers or primis,” Giancarlo says. “I think the one thing we’ll probably stay away from, especially at the beginning, is having large entrée dishes.”
One dish Giancarlo is targeting for Lady Funari is steeped in family memories: spaghetti and blue crabs. “It was a celebratory meal for birthdays and holidays,” he says. “Mom-mom would wake up at 6 a.m. and start a big pot of gravy. Family would start to come over around midday, and around two o’clock, she would disappear and we know that meant she’s traveling to New Jersey from Pennsylvania to go pick up the blue crabs. Three hours later, we’re eating dinner. The first part is you get these crabs and they’re whole in shell, and you’re getting messy and cracking open the crabs and eating the crab meat with the sauce all over it, literally making a giant mess, especially when there’s five kids at the table. And then the second course is a plate of spaghetti with her beautiful red sauce over it that had those crabs simmering. It’s probably the singular, most nostalgic bite of food for me. I would love to do a version of that here, if we can source the crabs.”
Overall, the pasta program will include extruded, sheeted, and hand-formed shapes, such as spaghetti, tagliatelle, pappardelle, rigatoni, and orecchiette. Eventually, stuffed pastas such as ravioli and agnolotti will be added. “We’re going to run the gamut,” Giancarlo says. The menu’s restraint extends to how the dishes are constructed. Rather than sauce-heavy presentations, Giancarlo is aiming for balance, inspired by how his grandmother cooked. “The pasta was the star; her sauce was there as an accent,” he says.
The beverage program, under the direction of B-Side beverage director Henry Schmulling, will focus on on traditional trattoria offerings such as negronis, spritzes, and amaros, as well as a curated Italian wine list. “We’re going to focus on Italian, Sicilian, and Puglian wines that really fit,” Giancarlo says. “We’ll have a good, long list, both red and white. We’re shooting to have everything by the glass, even the more expensive bottles.”
Renovations to the space include addings a buchette del vino, a little wine window like those found throughout Florence, Italy where customers can have wine or other beverages passed to enjoy on the patio.
Eventually, pre-dinner caffé service will open earlier in the afternoon, offering espresso and similar drinks along with baked goods sourced from local bakeries.
Construction is still underway and Giancarlo is hopeful the 1,600 square-foot space will be ready by the end of June. When complete, Lady Funari will be able to seat 40 guests in the dining room, with an additional 40 on the outside patio. “We have a little bit playing to our advantage because the landlord there, with the condos above, really wants us to get open as fast as possible, so he’s kind of expediting as much as he can for us.”
“Start simple, just make it great, make it artisanal, and make it perfect,” Giancarlo says. “We want to be that spot people can come to more than once a week, belly up at the bar, have a good aperitif or a good negroni, enjoy a plate of pasta, and go home happy.”
Just like mom-mom would want it.
Stay tuned!
Once again, B-Side and Unpretentious Palate have teamed up to present a preview dinner of Lady Funari before it officially opens (date, TBD). Remember, paid subscribers get advance notice of UP dining events as well as the opportunity to purchase tickets at a discount. Keeping your membership active will assure you of getting first dibs on this special event. Not yet a UP member? Click here to subscribe.
