Lux Lucis

Lux Lucis is the rooftop gastronomic restaurant of Hotel Principe Forte dei Marmi — a contemporary five-star superior property on Viale Morin, opened in 2009 — and holds one Michelin star under chef Valentino Cassanelli. The dining room sits on the hotel's seventh-floor rooftop, with a 270-degree view of the Apuan Alps to the east (the marble-quarry mountains directly above the village) and the open Tyrrhenian Sea to the west.

Cassanelli — a Versilia-native chef trained at Carpaccio in Milan and the Quinces in Florence — took the kitchen in 2011 and runs a contemporary Italian menu with deep regional sourcing. Signatures include a hand-rolled tagliatelle with Versilia spider crab and 36-month Parmigiano; a slow-roasted Mediterranean turbot with green tomato and basil oil; a wood-fired Apuan-quarry-water-salt-crust sea-bass; a Mazzara del Vallo red-prawn crudo with green olive and sea-fennel; the famous 'risotto al limone della costa' — a Versilia-lemon risotto that Cassanelli has refined since 2013.

The wine list runs to 800 references with a serious Tuscan-coast Vermentino spine, deep coverage of Versilia and Bolgheri smallholders, and a tightly chosen Champagne section. Sommelier Francesco Fortunato runs the floor and the pairing flight at €130 is heavily Tuscan-led.

The dining room and rooftop terrace together hold forty-eight covers — twenty-four in the indoor glass-walled dining room, twenty-four on the rooftop terrace. The summer terrace is the most photographed view-driven dining setting in the village. Service is hotel-grade — uniformed captains, choreographed plate-arrival, exact pacing. The Principe itself is forty-two rooms; most diners stay overnight.

Lux Lucis is the impress-the-client room when the brief is contemporary rather than institutional. The Michelin star answers the credibility question; the seventh-floor rooftop with the Apuan Alps view is the conversation; the kitchen's modern Italian register is genuinely distinctive against the village's more traditional rooms. Book the corner four-top on the rooftop terrace at sunset; ask Francesco for the Bolgheri-vertical pairing.