Chef

Alfonso Cicerale

Discipline: Chef

Portrait of Alfonso Cicerale

i. Biography

The clearest marker of the cooking is a disciplined plate: precise seafood, structured courses, and attention to presentation as part of the work, not an afterthought. In Alfonso Cicerale’s kitchen, the dish is built as a composition, with texture, color, and season held in balance before the first bite lands.

The Sunday letter

Read Made By's new profiles every Sunday.

Meet the chefs, winemakers and sommeliers behind the places we cover. See a sample below before you subscribe.

See a sample of the Sunday email

One email a week. Unsubscribe from any issue.

The Climb

Early work at Semplice Restaurant in London gave Alfonso Cicerale a setting where pace and precision mattered. That period sharpened the measured control that still defines the cooking: attention to detail, a steady hand, and a style that favors clarity over noise. As chef of La Caravella, Alfonso Cicerale has carried that discipline forward, with the same exacting register now applied to a different kitchen and context.

Career - Chef — La Caravella, Amalfi Coast, Italy - Chef — Semplice Restaurant, London

Signature

Polenta e schie sits at the center of Alfonso Cicerale’s signature. The dish reflects a clear interest in seafood and regional memory, and it matches a style that prizes elegance without excess. What is notable is the care given to how the course reads on the plate as much as how it tastes: a preference for visual order, restraint, and familiar elements arranged with purpose.

In Their Words “The kitchen, for me, is a journey that involves all the senses, and it is also for this reason that I also give great importance to the presentation and the colors of the dish.” Taken together, the quotes place the work in a frame of tradition, history, culture, and presentation. Venice is treated here as a source of material and meaning, and the plate becomes the point where that inheritance is translated into course structure, color, and form.

Recognition

The work is recognized for its attention to fish, color, presentation, and regional memory. Alfonso Cicerale’s cooking gains force from that combination: each course shaped with intent, and flavor and appearance treated as coequal parts of the same job.

FAQ Where did Alfonso Cicerale work before? Alfonso Cicerale's earlier career included Semplice Restaurant.