A restaurant opening in town next week will offer Mediterranean-influenced dinners with a rotating menu using largely locally grown food.

“It will be directly influenced by what’s available on the island,” said owner Chris Lueck.

Called Isola — the Italian word for island — the restaurant is slated to open June 23 in the former Express Cuisine space. It will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays for dinner beginning at 5 p.m.

At Isola, Lueck said he and his staff hope to provide high-end dining but in a casual and family-friendly atmosphere. A staple of the eatery’s menu will be fresh pastas with several choices for sauces. It will also offer salads and small plates with items such as meatballs, cheeses, charcuterie or seasonal vegetables. It will carry a variety of European wines, with staff ready to make recommendations on kinds Lueck said customers might not be as familiar with.

The restaurant’s menu will change regularly and will use as many locally grown and locally produced ingredients as possible. For instance, an Island salad will be made with produce currently in season on Vashon; summer desserts will include island-grown strawberries, and the winter menu may rely more on preserves. Several island farms have been tapped to provide produce and dairy for Isola, and meat will come from a farm in Whatcom County.

“There’s no reason to use ingredients that come from everywhere else,” he said.

Lueck is perhaps best known on Vashon as the wine buyer at Thriftway, where he worked from 2010 to 2013. But he has also cooked professionally since 1980 and graduated from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in 1983. Throughout his career, he’s worked at several high-end restaurants, including restaurants in New York and Napa Valley.

In addition to his work at Thriftway, Lueck spent several years in charge of prepared food at several Whole Foods stores. He helped open the Mileta Creek Restaurant at the Vashon Golf & Swim Club in 2012 and managed it for a time. However, he always dreamed of owning his own restaurant. In 2013, he purchased Express Cuisine and kept the longtime restaurant’s service model and menu unchanged. But last summer, knee problems forced him to put the eatery up for sale.

Sitting in the restaurant last week, Lueck explained that the restaurant had several interested buyers, but three different offers fell through. Meanwhile, he had knee replacement surgery and recovered well.

“Let’s just take it back over,” he recalled thinking. “I was at the physical and mental point that I could do it.”

Instead of simply reopening Express Cuisine, Lueck said this time he wanted to create a new restaurant around his own vision. Unlike Express Cuisine, Isola will have table service, and Lueck carefully selected a staff to help him bring his ideas to fruition.

Jake Heil, the former manager of a successful Portland establishment called the Multnomah Whiskey Library, will be Isola’s front-of-house manager and is helping with the opening.

Lauren Garaventa and Molly Biehn — known for their popular Meat & Noodle pop-up restaurant — will be the resaturant’s in-house butchers. They’ll use grass-fed and dry-aged meat from Breckenridge Farm in Everson, Washington, products that Garaventa said will be more sustainable and have more taste than those from out-of-state farms. Local farms providing produce and dairy for the restaurant include Sun Island Farm, Pacific Potager, Burton Hill Farm and Kurtwood Farm.

“People are ready for their casual food to be as good as the food they eat on special occasions,” Garaventa said.

Lueck said he’s personally excited to open a restaurant with a local food bent, but said he believes Vashon diners are also ready for a restaurant with many local offerings.

“We totally believe in this whole system,” he said. “Its not because we want to be cool. … It’s because we believe in what’s going on on the island.”