Damini Macelleria & Affini

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Century of Craft, Reimagined at the Table

The Damini name has meant quality in the Veneto for nearly a hundred years. The family's first butcher shop opened in the 1920s in San Giovanni Ilarione, on the hillsides above Verona, where the great-grandfather would visit local farmers, smell the stalls, and seal every purchase with a handshake — no written contract required. That pact of mutual respect has carried through four generations and still shapes how Damini Macelleria & Affini operates today.

The current chapter began when brothers Gian Pietro and Giorgio Damini decided to reopen the historic family butchery together, each bringing a distinct expertise: Gian Pietro as master butcher, Giorgio as chef. The result is something genuinely unusual — a place that is at once a working macelleria, a fine-dining restaurant, and a gourmet bottega stocked with carefully selected Italian food and wine.

Europe's First Michelin-Starred Butcher Shop

Since 2015, Damini Macelleria & Affini has held a Michelin star — the first butcher-restaurant in Europe to receive one — earned by chef Giorgio Damini. Gambero Rosso has also recognised the restaurant with 2 forks, confirming its standing among Italy's most considered dining destinations. The recognition is well-grounded: the kitchen's relationship with its raw material is as direct as it gets, with Gian Pietro selecting animals from breeders who raise them on natural feed, with minimal intervention and genuine attention to animal welfare.

Giorgio's Kitchen

Chef Giorgio Damini's cooking is rooted in the same philosophy as the butchery: deep knowledge of ingredients, respect for tradition, and a willingness to rethink. The blog dishes offer a sense of his range — a fegato alla veneziana kept on the menu because of its ties to Veneto gastronomic culture, a cold tagliolino with dill, curry, coconut and raw meat for summer, a bollito misto con pearà that speaks to the region's slow-cooked heritage, and a carpaccio built around fermented garlic, aubergine and egg sauce. Dishes move between the deeply classical and the quietly inventive, always with the quality of the meat at the centre.

The Full Damini Experience

Dinner is offered as a surprise tasting menu — six or nine courses — or as a meat-focused classics menu, with optional wine pairing. The bottega alongside the restaurant carries wines, gourmet provisions and Damini's own cuts, making it possible to take something of the experience home. The atmosphere, by the family's own description, is joyful and passionate — a place to recognise a scent, be moved by a new flavour, and hear the stories of the people behind the food.

Arzignano sits just minutes from the A4 Milan–Venice motorway, making Damini a natural stop for anyone travelling through the Veneto with an appetite for something more than ordinary.