Causa Persa

Causa Persa opened in August 2020 on Piazza Garibaldi in Monterosso's old town — the small town-hall square one block back from the Fegina seafront — and has become the Cinque Terre's clearest contemporary-Ligurian kitchen statement since the Miky family entered the Michelin Guide in 1990. The name means 'Lost Cause' in Italian, a reference to the owners opening a serious fine-dining room during the COVID shutdown, which they survived and the village needed.

Chef Paolo Sanvitale trained at Da Vittorio (three Michelin stars, Bergamo) and Casa Perbellini (two stars, Verona) before coming south. The menu is a modernised Ligurian register — technique-forward, lighter than Miky's classicism, with a willingness to push ingredients beyond the regional canon. Signature dishes include an anchovy-olive-oil ice cream served with fried bread; a risotto with squid ink, lemon, and Monterosso white wine; a pigeon breast with myrtle berries and a sauce of aged balsamic; and a chocolate-olive-oil cake that the chef sends at the end of every tasting menu.

The tasting menu is seven courses (€95) or the shorter four-course (€70). The à la carte is short (five starters, five mains, four desserts) and changes every three weeks with the coastal growing calendar. The wine list is 140 labels, skews Italian small-grower with a focus on Liguria and Piemonte, and includes the restaurant's own blend Sciacchetrà (produced by a Riomaggiore winemaker and sold only here).

The dining room seats 40 across a contemporary-industrial interior — exposed brick, Edison bulbs, dark-oak tables. Service is young, bilingual Italian-English, and energetic. This is the Cinque Terre restaurant for guests who have done Miky and Belforte and want the next thing.

Deal dinners in the Cinque Terre are rare — the region is a holiday destination more than a business one — but when they happen, they happen at Causa Persa. The contemporary room signals modernity; the tasting menu gives structure; the €70 four-course option lets the business lunch stay inside two hours. Book the corner booth, pre-agree the bill, choose the four-course with paired Ligurian wines.