Il Moderno

The Restaurant

Forget whatever you have read calling Il Moderno a fusion fine-dining room. The truth is better. Livia Coarelli opened it in 2015 at Via del Carmine 1, in Perugia's centro storico, and she cooks the whole menu herself in a small open kitchen you can watch from your table. Everything is organic, seasonal and largely sourced from local Umbrian farms or fair-trade suppliers. This is a one-woman kitchen with a point of view, not a brigade chasing Michelin.

The cooking crosses Umbrian tradition with French and North African influences, the result of Coarelli's own background, and it leans hard on vegetables because she is vegetarian. Local products carry the menu — roveja, the black celery of Trevi — and the desserts, including a ricotta, coconut and chocolate plate, run about €6. A full dinner lands around €44 a head, which for cooking this careful is the most honest bill in the city centre.

Here is the contrarian point. Perugia has flashier rooms and pricier tables, but few that over-deliver the way this one does. You are not paying for white-glove theatre or a two-hundred-bottle cellar; you are paying a fair price for organic food made by the person who designed it. For value and honesty, Il Moderno is the sleeper that the trophy listings keep getting wrong.

Not For

Skip Il Moderno if you want a grand room, an extensive cellar or a meat-heavy blowout: it is a tiny, vegetable-leaning organic kitchen run by one chef, and a steak-and-status crowd will be disappointed.