The Restaurant

An experiment in extemporaneous cooking.
Unique stories of ingredients, wine and territory. An opportunity to keep your senses alert.

Gagini Restaurant

A careful and ongoing study of the territory, an itinerant taste laboratory in constant search of new flavours, ingredients and experiences.
All this is Gagini.
Studying, drawing from the land, making connections, this is how one delves deeper into the meaning and potential of ingredients: by getting in touch with those who produce them, those who grow them, those who bring them into the kitchen.

Location

Mediterranean sea, city of Palermo, the La Vucciria district, Cala.

These four coordinates are enough to take you to Gagini’s, within the 16th-century walls that were the workshop of the greatest sculptor of the Sicilian Renaissance, Antonello Gagini. Here, cooking is an experience, a link between past and present, between places near and far. It is a thread that binds the ritual of food with Art. The works of Per Barclay, a renowned Norwegian artist, echo between the walls of the Gagini, establishing this indissoluble link with Art.

“The ingredient is the fruit of Nature, it is a gesture of great experience, it is, above all, respect. It deserves attention and maximum concentration” – Mauricio Zillo.

Mauricio Zillo

Mauricio Zillo, the spearhead of the Gagini Restaurant, was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1980. He arrived in Italy in 2011, in Milan, after broadening his experience alongside chefs such as Bocuse, Atala, Arzak and Santamaria.

However, it would be his collaborations with Pont De Ferr, working alongside chef Matias Perdono, and with Rebelot, where he was himself the head chef, that would officially affirm his love for Italy, its cuisine and its products.

This passion would accompany him all the way to Paris, to his restaurant A Mère, a small sliver of the global south within the Parisian 10th Arrondissement. Then came a brief interlude in Spain and a year spent roaming the countries and cuisines of the planet, before returning to Italy in 2020, this time to Palermo, Sicily, within the walls of the Gagini restaurant.

And it was here that he took the opportunity to casually combine international cultures and languages with an authentic Sicilian spirit.
In 2021, as Chef at Gagini, the Michelin guide awarded him a star, the highest accolade in gastronomy, launching him into the limelight of global fine dining.