Il Pagliaccio

Anthony Genovese breads veal sweetbread three times in the Japanese karaage style and serves it beside the blanquette de veau his mother says he first cooked at eight.

Why go

Anthony Genovese was born in 1968 in Cluses, in the French Alps, to Calabrian parents. He trained at the hotel school in Nice and moved to Italy in the 1990s to cook at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence. In those years he travelled through Thailand, Japan, China and Malaysia. He opened Il Pagliaccio in 2003. MICHELIN gave it a star in 2006 and a second in 2009 (Le Petit Journal, 2024). Both hold in the 2026 guide (MICHELIN Guide, 2025). The name is for his father. In the main room there is a painting of a clown that my mother painted for my father, Genovese told Joanna Blain of Le Petit Journal. His father died when he was 20.

He owns the restaurant with Marion Lichtle. Several of Rome's younger chefs came up in his kitchen, among them Antonio Ziantoni of Zia. When I landed at Il Pagliaccio I understood that a starred kitchen need not be rigid hierarchies, Ziantoni told Scatti di Gusto (Scatti di Gusto, 2024).

Genovese says what he is after: My cooking has a strong personality, which matches who I am. It is made of contrast: hot and cold, sour and sweet, meat and fish (Le Petit Journal, 2024). The menus arrive blind, served strictly as a surprise unless a diet says otherwise. Dissapore's reviewer found it in one bite in 2019: an oyster leaf with curry ice cream that explodes with Thailand in a hot-cold contrast (Dissapore, 2019).

Giovanni Caldara of Gazzetta del Gusto ate the Parallels Experience in 2024, fourteen stages at a single table for at most six, in a room of its own. Testa-cuore e coda was a sort of irresistible tomato bruschetta: a cuore di bue tomato baked inside pizza bread until the bread turns to sponge, finished with mildly hot olive oil and salt. Il Bianco e il Nero is a vialone nano risotto cooked in onion broth, finished with smoked butter, an almond foam with grated marrow and black-garlic powder and a quenelle of onion ice cream, for a result of great creaminess, yet with a lightness you would almost call summery. He called the peach dessert, I veli di Khand, a remarkable dessert worthy of an excellent menu. His verdict on the kitchen was inspired cooking, held up by great technique that is never an end in itself but always aimed at pleasure in the taste (Gazzetta del Gusto, 2024).

In October 2026 Intermezzo cost 180 euros for four courses, Scintille 230 for six, Circus 270 for nine and Parallels 330 for ten, drinks excluded (Il Pagliaccio). Drink Champagne. The sommelier Luca Belleggia calls it the wine that goes with the whole meal and the one guests always ask for (Gazzetta del Gusto, 2024). His cellar holds about 2,000 labels, with 300 Champagne houses among them (MICHELIN Guide, 2025).

Order this / avoid

On the menu: Il Bianco e il Nero, the onion-broth risotto with onion ice cream, for Giovanni Caldara (Gazzetta del Gusto, 2024).3
On the menu: Testa-cuore e coda, the tomato baked in pizza bread, for Caldara (2024).3
On the menu: I veli di Khand, peach with muscovado mousse, liquorice and lavender meringue, for Caldara (2024).3

What locals & experts say

Igles Corelli, chef (Scatti di Gusto, 2018): the heavily spiced cooking with which chef Anthony Genovese reaches crazy balances.5
MICHELIN Guide inspector (2025): cosmopolitan chef-patron of personal vision and crystalline talent.1

Good to know

Timing: dinner Tuesday to Saturday. Shut Sunday and Monday. Ask the restaurant about a Saturday lunch.
Booking: book online through the restaurant's site, and give any allergy or diet then, because the dishes arrive unannounced.
Where: Via dei Banchi Vecchi 129/a, in a palazzo dated 1502 between Campo de' Fiori and Piazza Navona.

Verdict

should-visit — Go for Anthony Genovese's blind tasting menus, from a cook who has held two MICHELIN stars since 2009 and trained several of Rome's younger chefs. Plan on 180 to 330 euros a head before wine in 2026, and on learning what each course is only when it arrives.