Rossellinis

Since 2018 at the Ravello pass

Since 2018, the pass has belonged to Giovanni Vanacore, Executive Chef at Rossellinis in Ravello, Italy. He works inside Palazzo Avino, where the kitchen has to hold its nerve between the cliffside setting and the plate, letting the coast speak without allowing scenery to do the cooking. His post is not a cameo in the house; it is the station that defines his current work, a daily discipline of pace, finish, and restraint.

Vanacore’s cooking at Rossellinis moves through Campania without treating the region as a set of souvenirs. The restaurant names dishes such as Raviolo Ravello, Fish in Clay Dish, and Sua Maestà II Babà, and his own repertoire has included paccheri di Gragnano with slow-cooked octopus ragù and coastal turbot grilled over olive wood with broccoli rabe. The line between comfort and control matters here. Ravioli can keep the memory of the table; octopus ragù asks for patience; turbot takes smoke, salt, and bitterness without losing its shape.

A tasting menu held close to the coast

Rossellinis works in the fine-dining register, with tasting menu and à la carte formats, and the kitchen’s method sits in the details rather than in a single flourish. The house’s menu architecture has included named paths such as Ravello Come Casa Mia and Gran Degustazione, both built around regional memory, produce, and progression. Dishes carry the Amalfi Coast through form and seasoning: risotto with frigitelli peppers, red tuna bottarga, and lemon; grilled fennel with gratinated almonds and orange sauce; linguine with sea urchins; saffron and shrimp risotto.

The bread service gives the program its own bench-side rhythm. Crisp breadsticks, truffle focaccia, Sardinian-style crackers, and charcoal sourdough arrive as part of the meal’s structure, not as filler between courses. Olive oil, cloudy and green, brings pepper and weight. Pre-dinner finger foods are part of the Rossellinis sequence, and dessert can move from Amalfi Sfusato to petit fours colored to echo the pink of Palazzo Avino. The restaurant holds one Michelin star, and that award belongs to this house in Ravello.

The room before the first course

The room at Rossellinis is formal, quiet, and close to the architecture of Palazzo Avino: whitewashed arches, candlelight, live music, and a terrace that looks over the Amalfi Coast toward Minori and beyond. The setting could overwhelm a kitchen with less conviction. Vanacore’s task is to keep the service measured, so the view becomes part of the cadence rather than the point of the meal.

That cadence starts before the dining room fully takes hold, with champagne and finger foods in the garden, then moves to the pass, where each course has to meet the room without becoming decorative. Rossellinis is small in scale and polished in manner, yet the work still turns on ordinary pressures: timing, heat, sauce, bread, plates, hands. The final memory is often specific, a Raviolo Ravello set against the terrace at Palazzo Avino.