Aqua Crua

The story

Aqua Crua in Barbarano Vicentino: Michelin-starred contemporary cooking

Aqua Crua, at piazza Calcalusso 11/a in Barbarano Vicentino, is a contemporary restaurant that earned one Michelin star in 2026. Gambero Rosso also awarded it two forks in 2022, and the kitchen sits in a converted old building in the town centre.

Chef and cooking style

Giuliano Baldessari runs the kitchen and co-founded the restaurant with Francesco Dal Toso, who is an entrepreneur and farmer in Barbarano Vicentino. The restaurant's site says the chef tastes his dishes in a fitted latex suit, which shuts out the other senses so that flavour gets his full attention. The cooking is built around that focus on taste.

Menus and dishes

The à la carte list is called Carta Crua. Alongside it, three tasting menus called Iniziazione I, II and III move guests through a sequence of new flavours. The site asks diners to start with the first menu, since the three are designed as one progression. Guests decide for themselves when they are ready for the third. Baldessari has also run Saturday cooking courses here, in which participants spend three hours in the kitchen preparing and tasting the dishes the restaurant serves that day.

Room and setting

The dining room uses artist tableware by Pino Castagna and hand-blown glasses from Murano. An indoor vertical garden and an outdoor garden bring plants into the space. The site states that all the energy the restaurant uses comes from renewable sources.