Ten years, three different chefs and a Michelin Star looking to the future. At Nove at Villa della Pergola, Antonio Romano is developing an increasingly personal cuisine, suspended between sea and soil, while the Orto Rampante sets the table for the restaurant of tomorrow.
The Setting
Villa della Pergola is part of the cosmopolitan history of Alassio, a city that over the years has welcomed travellers, artists and writers without losing the strong Ligurian identity that still defines it today. Here, this openness to the outside world is expressed above all through its enchanting garden: 22,000 square metres of terraces and botanical species brought from far away, including citrus trees, wisteria, agapanthus and plants that have found an ideal habitat on the Riviera.
The Nove restaurant is set within this landscape and, increasingly, the landscape itself finds its way into the restaurant. Citrus fruits, herbs and vegetables from the garden make their way onto the plates, and perhaps this is where Nove makes its mark on one of the major questions facing contemporary cuisine. In a sector that talks so much — perhaps too much — about zero-mile ingredients, short supply chains, proximity and direct relationships with producers, here the distance is reduced almost to the point of disappearing: the raw ingredients do not simply come from a nearby area, but are grown in the very same garden that surrounds the restaurant. This is not merely a question of sourcing, but a different way of understanding the relationship between place, cuisine and hospitality. Bringing them together.
The tasting menus are Terræ, six courses at €200, and Reverie, eight courses at €240. Two journeys through a cuisine that is vegetable-driven and marine, Italian yet open to outside influences, technical but far removed from mere displays of technique.
Nove’s third chapter: the chef and his philosophy
Chef Antonio Romano, born in 1993 and Roman through and through, trained between London and Italy before arriving in Alassio with a technical background developed in some of the most prestigious kitchens of modern fine dining. Liguria is therefore not the region where he learned to cook, but the place where he chose to question everything he had learned, taking on the considerable legacy first left by Giorgio Servetto and then by Giorgio Pignagnoli.
From this has emerged a philosophy that does not seek to represent Alassio through a repertoire of familiar symbols. In his dishes, Taggiasca olives, prebuggiún, citrus fruits, trombette zucchini, vegetables from the garden and fish instead become excellent ingredients to be interpreted through techniques, elements and sensibilities developed elsewhere. Acidity, fire, vegetal elements and contrasts are the most recognisable traits of his style, but it is above all in the relationship between garden and sea that Nove is now defining its distinctive identity.
The Dishes
Let’s start with the basics, since the sourdough panzanella with garden tomatoes and green gazpacho is Romano’s ultimate signature dish. A popular dish transformed without losing either its soul or its memory: the sourdough bread is worked to concentrate its flavour and texture, the tomato is presented in several different expressions, while the green gazpacho adds an herbal element. The result, both on the palate and on the nose, remains as straightforward as classic panzanella, but with greater depth and precision.
The connection with the garden is even more direct in the poached Cantaloupe melon with scapece-style zucchini, preserved trombette zucchini, candied pumpkin seeds, zucchini blossom snow and mint. Here, vegetables take centre stage: the melon brings sweetness and juiciness, while zucchini, trombette, seeds and mint successively shape a combination of acidity, toasted notes and freshness. Yet tasting it takes you well beyond the wow effect of its presentation.
In the plin filled with goat cheese and apricot mostarda, served with red pepper extraction and crusco pepper, memories of his years in Turin return. The quintessential Piedmontese pasta is pushed towards the Mediterranean, with the interplay of sweetness, acidity and toasted notes serving as the common thread.
The amberjack in seawater, with charred snow peas, green beans, green tomato, Taggiasca olives and lovage gradually shifts the meal towards the sea. It is a dish in which Liguria emerges without ever becoming a cold statement of intent: the fish is paired with a broad, carefully constructed vegetable component, creating a balance in which garden and sea ultimately become almost one and the same.
Among the most successful dishes is also the nettles risotto with barbecue lemon paste, sour butter, pig’s ears and prebuggiún. It is a complex first course, yet its centre of gravity lies in the tension between vegetal notes, smokiness, acidity and richness.
And finally, there is the veal sweetbread in dry brine, with peaches, cucumber and fennel pollen, a main course that applies Romano’s approach even to meat. And that is precisely how a rich, structured and challenging ingredient such as sweetbread is lightened through an ensemble of fruit, vegetables and Mediterranean aromas.
Orto Rampante and the Future
Alongside the garden and the restaurant, another major transformation is already taking shape: the Orto Rampante project, which involves the restoration of the land and terraces adjoining the property, once owned by the family of Carlo Levi, with the aim of creating an agricultural and cultural project intrinsically connected to Villa della Pergola.
Developed in collaboration with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the project includes three new greenhouses dedicated to agricultural, educational, culinary and hospitality activities. The central greenhouse — so the whispers go among the agapanthus — could one day even become the new home of Nove, while the Villa’s current spaces could be given over to a more informal offering.
For now, these are all just possibilities, but the direction seems clear, very clear: to expand the experience without separating it in any way from the surrounding landscape.
For Romano himself, this would represent another step forward, because in this new concept the idea of proximity takes on an even more concrete, tangible meaning right from the blueprints: the garden ceases to be merely a source of ingredients, evolving into the very structure of the culinary project.
Villa della Pergola, ten years on
It is impossible to look to the future without first building solid foundations. Behind all this is the work of Francesca Ricci, Restaurant Manager and the smiling face of the property, who over the past ten years has guided the restaurant through three different culinary chapters. A continuity that does not mean an unchanging style, but rather a clear commitment to progress. “Ten years ago, we opened the doors of Nove with the ambition of creating a place capable of telling the story of Liguria through cuisine. Today, that story continues with Antonio Romano. A new chef, a new sensibility, a new idea of cuisine,” she told us during our visit.
This threefold perspective is perhaps the key to understanding Nove in 2026: the Michelin Star represents continuity; Romano, change; Orto Rampante, the future. Three players holding hands on the colourful stage of Villa della Pergola. Almost as if saying, all together: enough time has passed to create an identity, but not enough to stop changing it.
Contact details
Villa della Pergola
Via Privata Montagu, 9/1, 17021 Alassio SV
Phone: 0182 646130
