Lux Lucis

Sunday lunch held at the pass

Pasta carries the memory of Sunday lunch in Valentino Cassanelli's hands; as Chef at Lux Lucis in Forte dei Marmi, he works that grammar into a rooftop kitchen above the Tyrrhenian Sea. Valentino Cassanelli traces the beginning to the countryside outside Modena, where the repeated table, the family ritual, and the pace of a Sunday meal gave him a practical way to read hospitality. At Lux Lucis, that early measure does not become nostalgia. It becomes a working method for Tuscan gastronomy, with pasta as a point of focus and the coast as pressure on the plate. The restaurant holds One Michelin star, awarded to Lux Lucis in 2017, but the useful fact is how Cassanelli keeps the cuisine moving between Emilian memory and Versilia ingredients. The house describes the cooking as a free expression of Italian cuisine, and the phrase fits the station when it stays close to the bench: dough, fish, herbs, acidity, the length of a sauce, the decision to let a local material remain legible.

Wine before the dish, sea before the sauce

The program at Lux Lucis is built around a close exchange between kitchen and cellar, with dishes shaped through wine flavor profiling rather than paired only after the fact. That order matters. It asks the pass to think in tannin, salinity, bitterness, lift, and finish before a plate reaches the room. Cassanelli's repertoire includes Ricordo futuro, Alba di Mezzogiorno, and Profondo; other named dishes, from red mullet in scent of pine and sea to Tortello di coniglio, capperi e liquirizia, keep the line between land and water under tension. Profondo sets amberjack with miso, elderberries, pollen, burnt herbs, grill, barbecue, and the quieter counterpoint of cucumber, purslane, wild herbs, and tomato. Brezza turns the pre-dessert into a coastal gesture: mascarpone parfait, lemon seawater air, sea herbs, and caviar set on a local marble spoon. The marble is not decoration here. It brings the town's stone history to the table in the scale of a single bite.

Glass, marble, and the open kitchen

The room sits high in the Hotel Principe Forte dei Marmi, with floor-to-ceiling glass opening toward stone pines, the Apuan Alps, and the Tyrrhenian Sea. The kitchen remains in view, so the pass is part of the room's texture rather than a hidden engine. Evening light comes through the glass and catches the table designs, the marble sculptures, the clean edges of formal service. It is a quiet room, intimate in scale, made for attention rather than drift. Aperitifs begin on the roof garden terrace, then the work narrows indoors: plates leave the open kitchen, the cellar's decisions meet them, and Cassanelli's Modena table reappears inside Profondo.