Restaurant in Bologna, Italy
Bologna's serious seafood option. Book it.
Acqua Pazza is Bologna's most credible seafood restaurant at the €€€ tier, carrying a 2025 Michelin Plate and a 4.4 Google rating across 438 reviews. Dinner-only, open every evening from 7:29 PM. Book here if you want serious fish cooking in a city built for meat — and compare it against Al Cambio or Ahimè if budget is a factor.
With a 4.4 Google rating across 438 reviews and a 2025 Michelin Plate recognition, Acqua Pazza makes a clear case for itself as Bologna's most credible address for serious seafood. If you're in a city dominated by ragù, mortadella, and fresh pasta, and you want fish done with technical care, this is where to book. It opens at 7:29 PM every day of the week, dinner-only, so plan your evening around it rather than treating it as a flexible option.
Bologna is not a coastal city, which makes a dedicated seafood restaurant at this price point an interesting proposition. Acqua Pazza sits on Via Augusto Murri in the southeastern part of the city, and it operates exclusively in the evening across all seven days. At the €€€ price tier, you're paying for sourcing discipline and classical technique rather than spectacle or theatre. The Michelin Plate recognition in 2025 signals that the quality of cooking clears a documented threshold — the Plate is awarded to restaurants that Michelin considers to offer good food, even without a star.
The focus here is almost exclusively on fish and seafood, prepared in a classic, relatively unfussy register that puts the ingredient first. The approach is less about invention and more about getting the sourcing right and treating the product cleanly. For a food-focused traveller who wants to understand what Italian seafood cooking looks like away from the coast — and away from the tourist circuits of Rome or the Amalfi , Acqua Pazza is a useful data point. Compare it with [Alici Restaurant on the Amalfi Coast](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/alici-restaurant-amalfi-coast-restaurant) or [Gambero Rosso in Marina di Gioiosa Ionica](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/gambero-rosso-marina-di-gioiosa-ionica-restaurant) and you start to understand how Italy's seafood tradition translates across regions.
The editorial note attached to the Michelin data references a raw seafood selection at the start of the menu as evidence of ingredient quality. For a first-timer, that's a reasonable guide to intent: the kitchen is willing to serve product without heat, which requires confidence in what they're buying. That kind of transparency in sourcing is meaningful in a landlocked city, where the logistics of getting excellent fish require real effort.
Given the editorial angle here, it's worth being direct: Acqua Pazza is a dinner restaurant with a €€€ price point and Michelin recognition. The format is not built around delivery. Seafood at this quality and price tier does not travel well , raw preparations, delicate fish cookery, and classical plating are all compromised by transit time and container packaging. If you're considering this restaurant for off-premise dining, the short answer is no, it's not worth it. The entire value proposition of a place like Acqua Pazza is the dining room experience: the service rhythm, the temperature and texture of the food as it arrives, and the context of being in a focused, formal-ish setting. A delivery box would strip away everything that justifies the price. For Italian seafood that genuinely travels , simpler, more strong preparations , you'd be better served by a different category of restaurant. Acqua Pazza is a sit-down proposition, full stop.
Booking is assessed as easy at this venue, which is somewhat counterintuitive given the Michelin recognition, but Bologna's dining market is less pressured than Milan or Florence at the leading end. That said, at €€€ with a Plate and strong review scores, weekend evenings will fill faster than weekday slots. The restaurant opens every evening including Sunday, which is a practical advantage if you're visiting mid-week or scheduling around other commitments. No booking method is specified in the data, so your safest approach is to search the restaurant name directly for current reservation availability. For context on how the Bologna dining calendar works, [our full Bologna restaurants guide](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/bologna) covers the broader picture.
For timing within the evening, arriving near the 7:29 PM opening is likely your leading option if you want a quieter room and more attentive early-service pacing. Italian restaurant kitchens at this level tend to hit their stride quickly in the first seating.
Dinner is your only option here. Acqua Pazza opens at 7:29 PM every day and closes at 11:30 PM , there is no lunch service. If your schedule is inflexible, plan accordingly. Within the dinner window, an early arrival gives you a calmer room and the leading of the first-seating service rhythm.
For a lower-spend evening, Ahimè and Al Cambio both deliver serious cooking at €€, though neither focuses on seafood. If you want to stay in the seafood category, Osteria Bartolini is worth checking. For a step up in ambition and price, I Portici at €€€€ is Bologna's most decorated creative Italian. Acqua Pazza is the clearest choice if dedicated fish cooking at the €€€ tier is your priority.
Yes, with some caveats. The €€€ price tier, Michelin Plate recognition, and evening-only format give it the right register for a celebration. A dinner of careful seafood cookery in a dedicated room works well for a couple or a small group marking an occasion. It's not the loudest or most theatrical option in Bologna, which suits guests who prefer the food to carry the evening. For something more formally theatrical, I Portici at €€€€ would be the alternative to consider.
At €€€, Acqua Pazza sits in the middle tier of Bologna dining. The Michelin Plate confirms the cooking meets a documented quality standard, and a 4.4 rating across 438 Google reviews is a strong signal of consistent delivery. If you're comparing against the €€ options , Al Cambio, All'Osteria Bottega , the premium you pay at Acqua Pazza reflects the sourcing demands of quality seafood in a landlocked city. For a food-focused traveller who specifically wants fish at this level, the price is justified. If seafood isn't a priority, the €€ alternatives offer better value for Bologna's regional cooking.
Booking is rated easy, which means last-minute availability is generally possible , especially on weeknights. For Friday or Saturday evenings, booking 3 to 5 days ahead is a sensible buffer. Given the Michelin recognition and consistent review scores, don't assume walk-in availability on weekends. Confirm current booking methods directly via search, as no online booking link is currently listed in our data.
Acqua Pazza is a seafood-focused, dinner-only restaurant in Bologna's €€€ tier, open every evening from 7:29 PM. Expect a menu built almost entirely around fish and seafood, with classic technique rather than experimental cooking. The raw seafood selection early in the menu is worth engaging with , it's a signal of sourcing confidence. This is not a casual trattoria, so dress and pace accordingly. If you're in Bologna for the first time and want to understand the city's food scene more broadly, check our full Bologna restaurants guide before committing to a single booking.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acqua Pazza | €€€ | Easy | — |
| I Portici | €€€€ | Unknown | — |
| Ahimè | €€ | Unknown | — |
| Al Cambio | €€ | Unknown | — |
| Oltre. | €€ | Unknown | — |
| All'Osteria Bottega | €€ | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Acqua Pazza measures up.
Dinner is your only option — Acqua Pazza opens at 7:29 PM every day of the week with last service at 11:30 PM. There is no lunch service. If your schedule requires a midday meal, you will need to look elsewhere in Bologna.
For €€€ dining in Bologna with stronger local roots, Al Cambio and All'Osteria Bottega are the obvious comparisons, both focused on Emilian meat and pasta traditions rather than seafood. If you want something more contemporary, Ahimè and Oltre. offer modern Italian cooking at a similar price point. Acqua Pazza is the clearest choice if seafood specifically is the priority — the others will not fill that gap.
Yes, with the right expectations. The 2025 Michelin Plate recognition and €€€ pricing signal a formal dinner environment, and a seafood-focused menu with a serious wine list suits a celebratory meal. It works better for couples or small groups than large parties, given the dinner-only format and the style of cooking.
At €€€ in Bologna — a city where you can eat extremely well for far less — Acqua Pazza needs to justify the premium, and the Michelin Plate recognition suggests it does within its category. The case for paying up is strongest if you specifically want seafood: Bologna's default is meat and pasta, so there is no cheaper equivalent at this quality level. If you are indifferent to fish, the city's meat-focused €€€ options deliver stronger local value.
Booking is assessed as relatively easy by Pearl's standards — Bologna's dining market is less pressured than Rome or Milan, and Michelin Plate recognition does not carry the same reservation scarcity as a star. That said, booking two to five days ahead for a weekend dinner is sensible. Last-minute walk-ins may work on quieter weeknights, but there is no reason to risk it.
Acqua Pazza is a dinner-only seafood restaurant at €€€ pricing on Via Augusto Murri, away from Bologna's historic centre — factor in travel time. The menu focuses on fish and seafood rather than the pasta and cured meat that define the city's culinary identity, so arrive knowing that is the format. Michelin Plate recognition in 2025 confirms a consistent kitchen, but this is not a starred experience, so calibrate expectations for quality without ceremony.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
