Sciabola

Sciabola is the gastronomic restaurant of the St. Mauritius Hotel — a four-star property on Via XX Settembre, opened in the 1970s and currently in second-generation ownership — and holds one Michelin star under chef Nicola Gronchi. The dining room is the most architecturally distinctive of the village's recent Michelin-starred openings — a converted 1970s liberty-style townhouse with the original stone walls exposed, hand-carved larch beams, a single open-pass kitchen at the back, and forty covers across twelve tables.

Gronchi — a Versilia-coast native trained at La Pineta in Marina di Bibbona — took the kitchen in 2018 and runs a contemporary Italian-seafood menu with deep regional sourcing. Signatures include a hand-rolled tagliolino with Versilia spider crab; a slow-cooked Tyrrhenian sea-bass with green tomato and basil oil; a wood-fired Adriatic octopus with lemon confit; a Mazzara del Vallo red-prawn crudo with green olive; the famous 'spaghetto alle telline' — Versilia clams with extra-virgin olive oil and parsley.

The wine list runs to 500 references with a Tuscan-coast Vermentino spine and a respectable Bolgheri section. Sommelier Maria Antonia Vella runs the floor and the by-the-glass programme runs a generous eight-glass Versilia-Bolgheri flight. The pairing flight at €95 is the best Michelin-starred wine match in the village.

Service is family-run — the captains rotate from a year-round seasonal pool and the kitchen pacing is exact. Sciabola is the most reachable Michelin-starred dining experience in the village (lowest tasting menu price among the five-star cluster) and the room first-time visitors should book before any of the splurge addresses.

Sciabola is the easy-first-date room in Forte dei Marmi — quieter than Lorenzo, less formal than Lux Lucis, and the kitchen-front chef's-counter is a strong format for a date as it removes the across-the-table awkwardness of a four-course tasting. The Michelin-star credibility settles any doubts about the cooking; the relatively reachable price point keeps a date booking from feeling weighted. Book the chef's-counter two-top.