La Vigie Zanoni

The location is genuinely beautiful, and that is where the good news mostly ends. The room does not match the setting. The furnishings feel like an under-investment: basic tables, a layout clearly not thought through. For what was meant to be a romantic dinner, we were seated between the till and the service stand, so every plate coming out or being cleared passed under our noses, with staff constantly circling our table. The music did not help: a playlist that suited neither the venue, the setting, nor the style of the restaurant. Not the intimacy the price point promises. I came because I have followed Chef Simone Zanoni since the Covid period and have cooked his recipes at home for years. He was in the kitchen that night, which makes what followed harder to explain. The starters delivered. The gazpacho and the saffron arancini were both good, and the watermelon in the gazpacho added a sweetness I really enjoyed. Then the primi. The cacio e pepe, spaghetti alla chitarra, is billed as a chilled revisit of the classic, and both the menu and our waiter flagged this. Concept aside, it did not deliver: almost no pepper, mostly pecorino, and we did not enjoy it. For a dish named after its pepper, that is a « crime ». The seafood paccheri were average, nothing more. The mains sealed it. The eggplant parmigiana came in thin, mealy slices with the cheese arriving almost as a block. We canceled the octopus caponata before it arrived and skipped dessert. Prices are high, which is expected in Monaco. I would have paid them gladly for food that delivered. With the chef himself present, I expected the fundamentals to be right. They were not, and the value simply was not there. When chefs over-complicate dishes that live or die on simple execution, they usually lose. I would not recommend this one for good Italian.