Palmaria Restaurant — Restaurant in Porto Venere

A Taste of Paradise at Palmaria – Porto Venere’s Culinary Gem 🇮🇹🍝🍷

While exploring the dreamy seaside town of Porto Venere, we stumbled upon Palmaria Restaurant—and mamma mia, what a find! From the moment we walked in, we were warmly welcomed and seated right away by a gracious hostess who effortlessly switched between English and Italian. Bellissimo!

The service? Impeccabile. The food? Even better. Their on-site sommelier was a true maestro—her wine pairing was absolutely perfetto, enhancing every bite of our meal.

We kicked things off with a delicate Parmesan crisp topped with tomato jam, followed by Oysters from the Sea of Poets—fresh, briny, and poetry on a plate. Then came the star of the show: Linguine with sea urchins, mussels, and Ligurian pesto caviar. Every forkful tasted like a love letter from the Ligurian coast.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get better, dessert arrived: a mango cheesecake kissed with passion fruit and elderflower. Hands down the best cheesecake I’ve ever had—sweet, tangy, and beautifully balanced.

From start to finish, Palmaria delivered a five-star experience with plenty of Italian soul. If you find yourself in Porto Venere, do yourself a favor—stop in and treat yourself. Your taste buds will...

We chose the tasting menu for dinner, to remark:

For the menu we were provided with a QR code (iPad was offered in case of having issues). Well organised website, explaining the every ingredient used in the dish.

High quality products used by the kitchen. Tasty dishes, with different flavours using the ingredients from the area. The chef came after dinner to the table (he went to all the tables), to introduce himself and to ask for feedback. In my opinion this is really important. The fact that you get to know the person behind the dishes you ate and that for this person your opinion is so important that he is willing to come to you and ask.

Delighted with the service. Waiters could explain every ingredient of the dish. Every question and request we asked, was always answered and met. Service was always attentive and professional, while at the same time close and friendly (Bryant & Riccardo served us).

We had dinner outside in the terrace, such a beautiful view. Relaxed and summery environment. I liked the decoration, but the chairs could be more...

Good food and very helpful and professional staff. It tries a bit too hard and is far too 'old school' formal for a setting like this in my opinion. Serve from the left, clear from the right - I get it but then to give me a normal menu and my wife a menu w/o prices because she is the women is not cool (she was far more offended than I by this). We pointed it out to the head of the staff (as it turns out, we didn't call him over or anything) and he, not joking, explained that she got the menu on purpose. The view of the harbor is awesome as well. Really just dinging it for the odd experience and hopefully they loosen up a bit but still I would say give it a shot for a formal dining experience if that is...