Dalla Gioconda occupies a spectacular position at the top of Gabicce Monte, overlooking the Adriatic and the borderland between Marche and Romagna. The restaurant opened in 2021 in a former dancing club, created by Stefano Bizzarri and Allegra Tirotti Romanoff together with chef Davide Di Fabio. Sustainability was built into the project from the beginning: the building achieved LEED Gold certification, the restaurant maintains a natural vegetable and herb garden nearby, and the kitchen emphasizes small local producers and Adriatic fishermen. It subsequently earned both a Michelin star and Michelin Green Star.

Di Fabio has an unusually substantial pedigree. Born in 1985, raised largely in Abruzzo and trained in San Benedetto del Tronto, he joined Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana in 2005 at just 20. He remained for sixteen years, eventually becoming one of the senior figures in the kitchen alongside Takahiko Kondo, before leaving to open Dalla Gioconda.

His stated philosophy is to take the flavour memory of Italian dishes apart and reconstruct it for the present, accepting international influences without, in his words, “betraying the Italian taste.” That tension between Italian identity and outside influences was also one of the most interesting aspects of our dinner.

We chose the current €160 tasting menu, which moved from tomato-water ristretto with black tea and bitter notes through sea lettuce with cucumber, sesame and bottarga; oyster with lemon and bay leaf; scampi with rocket, pine nuts and combava; milk skin with cod; and chilled spaghettini with roasted peppers and red prawns.

The cooking was technically accomplished and frequently very good, although not completely even. The red mullet with Sangiovese was a good example: an interesting idea and attractive composition, but distinctly under-seasoned on our visit, leaving the fish less expressive than it should have been.

By contrast, the chili-glazed morone was excellent—confident, concentrated and one of the clearest successes of the evening. The menu continued with tortelli with apricot and rue and the intriguing pairing of pigeon and tuna belly, before moving into increasingly aromatic and playful desserts.

The broader question concerns Di Fabio’s increasing use of Asian—and particularly Japanese—ideas. The influences bring freshness and excitement, but occasionally feel adopted more through technique and flavour vocabulary than through a deep understanding of the culinary culture behind them. Given Di Fabio’s intelligence and technical ability, this feels entirely correctable: more sustained exposure to Japan and Asia could give these elements greater depth and precision while allowing his fundamentally Italian voice to remain dominant.

Overall, Dalla Gioconda feels like a very strong one-star restaurant moving toward two-star territory. The technical foundation, ambition, setting and best dishes are already at that level; greater consistency in seasoning and a more deeply assimilated approach to its Asian influences could provide the final degree of refinement. Less