L'Avventura

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Grand Stage for Italian Cooking

L'Avventura occupies one of Stockholm's most extraordinary rooms: the former auditorium of the Metropol-Palais cinema on Sveavägen 77, built in the 1920s in a style that drew on neoclassicism and the era's fascination with Pompeii. Six-meter-high ceilings, elaborate stucco details, and wall paintings by Nils Asplund — depicting Apollo, the three muses of love, and Dionysus — still preside over the dining room. Red velvet sofas and small table lamps recall the dance palaces of 1920s New York. The venue has been carefully restored to its original state, with two bars occupying the elegant foyer and the old balcony. Where the cinema screen once stood, there is now an open kitchen.

The name pays homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960 classic, and the spirit of that film — unhurried, atmospheric, intensely felt — carries through to the experience on the plate.

Chef Laura Marino and the Kitchen

Head chef Laura Marino, with restaurateur Karl Ljung behind the operation, leads an Italian kitchen built on carefully selected ingredients and a genuine commitment to sharing. In her own words: "We cook with passion and carefully selected ingredients. Generous sharing plates, Italian truffle, burrata, stracciatella, and 'nduja. This is food to be savored, enjoyed in the company of those you love."

The menu moves through antipasti, crudo, and salame before reaching pasta and grilled fish — sea bass served with caponata being one example from the kitchen's repertoire. On Thursdays, the room's most theatrical moment arrives: a trolley bearing a whole, lightly hollowed wheel of Parmesan is rolled to the table. Vodka is poured in and flamed, slowly melting the cheese, before pasta and shaved truffle are folded through. It is a crowd favorite that has become something of a signature ritual.

The restaurant also runs monthly ingredient-focused menus — recent themes have spotlighted Calabrian 'nduja and, in June, the tomato in its many expressions.

Recognition and the Full Experience

White Guide has recognized L'Avventura at Fine level, describing it as an "all-in-on-Italy restaurant" where the setting is extraordinary and demand for tables is consistently high. The wine list leans naturally toward Italy, and the bar program — spread across Bar Sotto below and the foyer bar above — produces substantial classic cocktails.

The Italian cuisine here is designed to be shared and lingered over, in a room that makes every evening feel like an occasion.