i. Biography
Leonardo Vignoli’s work is built on a Roman house style, with Da Cesare as the fixed point. The name carries through the roles, but the craft sits in the continuity: kitchen leadership, ownership, and wine service are all parts of the same restaurant grammar, extended over time with Maria Pia Cicconi and kept close to the family table that shaped it.
Coming Up
Today, the strongest register in Vignoli’s work is the combination of ownership and sommelier service at Da Cesare al Casaletto. That pairing matters: it places the cellar and the room in the same hand, with a kind of practical authority that comes from knowing the restaurant from the inside. Since 2023, that same approach has carried into Cesare al Pellegrino, where he has been co-owner with Maria Pia Cicconi, and in 2024 it expanded again with Da Cesare Laboratorio, another Rome address built from the same steady collaboration. This phase of the work reads as accumulation, but not in the decorative sense. Each project adds another function to the same system: service, wine, bread-making, and the daily discipline of running rooms that answer to one another. The result is not a collection of disconnected ventures. It is a small family network of places, each one tied to the same Roman logic and to the habits of care that keep a restaurant house consistent over time.
Where They Are Now
At Da Cesare al Casaletto, owner and sommelier are not separate labels but linked tasks, and Vignoli moves between them with the fluency of long practice. Since 2023, he has been co-owner with Cicconi at Cesare al Pellegrino in Rome, maintaining a collaboration that has grown step by step. In 2024, the pair also co-owned Da Cesare Laboratorio in Rome, where Vignoli connects the project directly to bread-making and to the idea of starting from the most basic part of the table. That is what gives the laboratory its place in the story. It is not presented as an accessory to the restaurants, but as a working extension of them, close enough to remain part of the same daily circuit. In Vignoli’s framing, the project answers a practical ambition: to make bread in-house, in a nearby space that supports that work. The result is a project that stays grounded in use, and in the Roman rhythm that ties the whole house together.
Signature
Leonardo's signature dishes include Leonardo Vignoli’s Cacio e Pepe.
In Their Words “The idea of opening a laboratory was born first and foremost from a dream: that of being able to make our own bread. Fortunately, we managed to find a space nearby, very close to the restaurant, that could support bread-making.”
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Leonardo
What is Leonardo Vignoli's current role?
He is chef of Da Cesare in Rome, owner and sommelier at Da Cesare al Casaletto, and co-owner with Maria Pia Cicconi of Cesare al Pellegrino and Da Cesare Laboratorio.
Where did Leonardo Vignoli work before?
Before the later openings, he became co-owner with Cicconi of Trattoria Da Cesare al Casaletto in 2009.
Who is Leonardo Vignoli?
Chef at Da Cesare.
Where is Da Cesare based?
Rome.
Where else has Leonardo Vignoli worked?
Da Cesare al Casaletto in Rome.
