The proposition that a Michelin-starred kitchen could operate successfully inside a large-format Italian food retail concept was not, at first, an obvious one. Eataly opened in the former Teatro Smeraldo on Piazza XXV Aprile in 2014, occupying multiple floors of a converted theatre with produce counters, wine departments, pasta stations, and a range of dining options from casual to formal. Alice occupied the formal tier from the beginning: a proper restaurant with a white tablecloth ambition, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the piazza, and tables beside an open kitchen where the diners could observe what was being prepared for them.
Viviana Varese earned the Michelin star at Alice's original location and carried that recognition forward through the Smeraldo iteration. Her cooking operates at the intersection of Italian regionalism and contemporary technique: she draws from the deep well of Italian cucina, applies a French-trained precision to it, and arrives at dishes that feel specifically Italian without nostalgia. The menu changes seasonally and responds to what the market floor below is offering: there is a directness of connection between the produce available downstairs and the preparations upstairs that most restaurants can only simulate. At Alice, it is structurally embedded in the building's logic.
The open kitchen is the defining architectural feature of the room. The most sought-after tables face it directly, placing the diner in a relationship to the cooking that is observational and engaged rather than passive. The wood fossil tables beside the floor-to-ceiling windows are the secondary preference: the piazza views and the quality of natural light that enters the room through those windows at lunch create an experience that the evening service cannot replicate. Both have merit; both are worth requesting specifically when booking.
The wine programme focuses on Italian producers with the depth of selection that a Michelin kitchen requires and the accessibility of a space that expects to serve guests who are simultaneously browsing a wine shop two floors below. The pairings are considered without being prescriptive. Service is professional with the particular warmth of a kitchen that has always understood its audience: the restaurant does not attempt the ceremony of the more formal starred rooms; it treats the food with seriousness and the diner with ease, which is the correct calibration for this environment.