An Italian restaurant named after its chef’s village: Vigonovo is a small town in the far north-east of Italy, between the mountains and the sea. Chef Marco Fiorot came from there to Kuwait in 2014 and gave the name to his first restaurant in 2016. Today it fills a floor of Khaleejia Tower on Jaber Al-Mubarak Street in Sharq, with a terrace over the intersection.
The same chef runs the kitchen at Si in Bidaa, which we wrote about earlier, but Vigonovo is the original: the first place he opened in Kuwait, and the one he still calls “a piece of where I come from”.
From Salmiya to Sharq
Vigonovo started in 2016 inside Al Khaled complex in Salmiya, a room of about ten tables with a menu that changed every day according to what the chef found at the market: three salads, four first courses, three mains, in small portions that pushed you to order more than one. That room closed, and in April 2019 the restaurant came back to life in Khaleejia Tower with more space, a bigger team and an outdoor terrace.
On the terrace, rattan discs hang from the ceiling between strings of bulbs, and the glass wall along the outside looks onto the street. Inside, the walls are painted as the front of an Italian house with red shutters and coloured flowers, and under the restaurant’s name a blackboard has filled up with guests’ signatures over the years until no gap is left. Lace curtains, and plates printed “Ciao Amore” to the chef’s own design.
What comes out of the pass
The bread is baked on site every day: rosemary focaccia in two versions, with and without gluten, a crisp ciabatta and a Mediterranean focaccia, sold as sandwiches in paper boxes. The pastry counter carries croissants, pain au chocolat and raisin swirls with the layers showing, which is what makes the place work as a bakery in the morning and a restaurant for the rest of the day.
The pasta is fresh, and the restaurant keeps saying so on its accounts. Cacio e pepe here comes on rigatoni rather than spaghetti: thick tubes coated in a sauce of cheese and coarsely ground black pepper, no cream, on a plate drawn with golden threads of spaghetti.
The spaghetti al pomodoro arrives twisted into a nest, with a whole burrata on top, then a spoon of pesto and two roasted cherry tomatoes with their skins glossy. The three colours are the point.
The cotoletta is a wide cutlet coated in breadcrumbs and fried to a deep brown, then cut into wedges and laid out on the plate like a pizza, with rocket, cherry tomatoes and parmesan shavings in the middle and half a lemon at the side. Red meat gets its share too: a bone-in steak off the grill, sliced to show the pink inside, served with a sprig of wild thyme.
There is a private room for groups, and gluten-free options are advertised on the restaurant’s account.
Hours and booking
The restaurant’s own account says it opens from 10 in the morning until midnight, while Google Maps lists 11 in the morning to 11 at night, so anyone aiming for the first or last hour should call before going. The brunch buffet runs on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.
Booking is through the reservation link on the restaurant’s Instagram account; walk-ins are taken subject to tables, and the restaurant has turned away guests without a booking at busy times. Prices are not published on the chef’s website; delivery is available through Talabat.
Location: Khaleejia Tower, Jaber Al-Mubarak Street, Sharq. Phone: 55520134.
Photos: Kuwait One
Further reading: chef Marco Fiorot’s website · the restaurant’s Instagram account · Kuwait Times · 2:48AM on the move to Khaleejia Tower
Photograph: Kuwait One.
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