Almatò

Focaccia by hand in Rome

Kneading focaccia by hand, Tommaso Venuti works as Chef & Partner at Almatò in Rome, holding the pass and the shape of the room together. His station here carries the discipline of ALMA International School of Italian Cuisine, then Villa Crespi Relais & Chateaux in Orta San Giulio, Marcus Wearing Restaurant in London from 2015, and La Pergola Rome Cavalieri from 2016 to 2019. At Almatò since 2020, that background moves from execution into authorship: menu decisions, standards, service rhythm, and the identity of the cooking all return to his hands.

The restaurant began in January 2020 in Prati, with three long-time friends turning a bond made on the rugby field into a small dining room. Venuti’s initials form part of the name, but the kitchen does not lean on sentiment. It works through structure. The cooking keeps Lazio close without treating tradition as a fixed script, setting familiar references against fermented, pickled, reduced, or sharpened elements. The pass asks for control rather than display. A rabbit ragù can take orange beurre blanc and olives; a marine pasta can stay focused through seaweed and clams; a maritozzo can move from Roman memory into a plated dessert without losing its outline.

A menu held to three choices

The à la carte follows a Rule of Three, with three dishes per course type, a restraint that suits an 18-seat restaurant. Tasting menus run at 5, 7, and 9 courses, giving the kitchen room to build progression without diluting the plate. Venuti’s focaccia sits at the center of that method: organic semolina and durum wheat flours from Marche, extra virgin olive oil, Maldon salt, and a 24-hour fermentation. The detail matters because it shows where the restaurant places labor. Bread is not a courtesy at the edge of the meal; it is another bench-side decision.

The same logic appears in the combinations. Beef tongue can meet green sauce, toma de lait brusc, and lentils. Squid can take fermented lettuce and kiwi. Beef bavette from Parmigiano Reggiano cows can sit with pea cream, Roman-style artichokes, pickled red onion, artichoke broth kombucha, and beef jus. These are not ingredient parades. Venuti tends to keep the subject legible, then changes the pressure around it: acid, broth, fat, bitterness, warmth. The wine program follows that line, with pairings such as 2022 Ribolla Gialla from Livio Felluga against rabbit tagliatelle, rosemary ragù, and citrus.

An 18-seat room off the tourist line

The room in Prati keeps the scale close. Exposed brick, wood, and soft lighting give the dining room warmth without pulling attention from the pass. Conversation stays low enough for the pace of service to register: a plate arriving, a glass set down, the brief explanation that tells a guest where to begin. The restaurant’s polish comes less from formality than from proximity. In a room this small, the kitchen and floor cannot hide from each other.

That intimacy gives Venuti’s cooking its proper frame. A course can be technically dense and still arrive as something direct, because the room does not ask the food to perform across distance. The cellar supports rather than interrupts. The counterpoint is Roman in the useful sense: memory, appetite, and craft held in the same space.

What remains in the house

Almatò’s most useful measure is the way certain ideas stay in service while the seasons turn. The Gianni dessert has remained a constant since opening, a tribute built from cigars and gianduja passions. Around it, the kitchen can change vegetables, broths, ferments, and cuts, but the gesture holds its place. End a meal here and the memory is not only of technique; it is of the Gianni dessert.