18/01/2026: I had dinner with my partner at Pascucci al Porticciolo last night.
It's not easy to describe an experience like this. After just a few hours, I've already realized that you don't come here to eat well. There's no shortage of places to eat well these days. You go there to challenge your understanding of cuisine and flavors, you go there to step out of your comfort zone. I found a cuisine that demands attention, time, detail, and silence. A cuisine that speaks of the sea in every dish and in all its essence. We opted for the menu called "as deep as the sea is," which contains about ten courses.
It's a progression of small touches, some delicate like the corn on the cob with passion fruit, others more rugged like the oyster with white chocolate granita. Certainly, nothing is there to please everyone. And that's precisely the point.
Technically, we're at a very high level, but the technique is never a show-off; in fact, the dishes are sometimes extremely simple in their conception but complex in their serving and preparation.
In the first course, "il mare in tavola" (sea on the table) with mixed pasta, I found a full, persistent flavor that contained every note of the sea. A round of applause for the delicate white grouper accompanied by burnt lime and green curry, escarole with béarnaise mayonnaise, and red mullet with foie gras and red berries. The Giarratana onion confit with mackerel is incredible. The green herb sorbet (I think basil and/or parsley) is incredible.
Only the (sweet) soufflé didn't fully convince me.
The service is remarkable, the staff is knowledgeable, always present but never invasive. The dining room has the same elegance as the kitchen: simple, concentrated, without frills, with classy paintings and sculptures that constantly recall the sea. The wine list is also impressive.
Chef Pascucci and Mrs. Vanessa constantly accompany guests throughout the dining room during the presentation of the dishes and throughout the dinner.
Superior to many other Michelin-starred restaurants of the same caliber (and even many with two stars), and above all, reasonably priced for the quality and technique on display.
Here, you don't leave simply saying "how delicious." You leave thinking. And, for those who truly love cooking, it's worth much more.
29/12/2025: Recommended by a colleague who called the experience "unique." It's the second 1-star restaurant I've tried in Rome and the surrounding area. We weren't blown away by the overwhelming flavors, and compared to the other restaurant, we didn't comment as enthusiastically about the tastes and pairings as we did at the other restaurant. We found some pairings to be inconsistent and overpowering the primary ingredient. For example, the red mullet with red fruit powder. All in all, not a bad experience. But we expected an explosion of flavors that, subjectively, we didn't receive.
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