Restaurant in Bologna, Italy
Historic room, modern menu, Michelin-noted.

I Carracci holds two consecutive Michelin Plates and a 4.5 Google rating inside one of Bologna's grandest hotel dining rooms. The Bologna tasting menu — built around 36-month Parmesan tortellini — is the main reason to book. Note that the fresco dining room is temporarily closed from 29 June to 14 September 2025; plan accordingly if the room is part of your reasoning.
A Google rating of 4.5 across 385 reviews is a reliable signal in a city where Bolognese diners are notoriously hard to impress. I Carracci, inside the Grand Hotel Majestic già Baglioni on Via Manzoni, holds two consecutive Michelin Plates (2024 and 2025) — recognition that the cooking meets a consistent technical standard without yet reaching star territory. At €€€ pricing, it sits in the mid-to-upper tier for Bologna dining. The question is whether the combination of serious frescoes, a pan-Italian menu with a Bolognese tasting menu at its centre, and a hotel dining room setting justifies that spend over the city's livelier independent alternatives.
The ceiling at I Carracci is the immediate reason this address has a reputation beyond its food. The dining room is adorned with frescoes attributed to the Carracci school — the Bolognese painters who reshaped Italian art in the sixteenth century and whose influence extended to Annibale Carracci's later work in Rome. Eating beneath that ceiling is a different experience from eating in a converted warehouse or a contemporary tasting-menu box, and for a certain kind of traveller that context is part of the evening's value.
There is a significant practical detail to factor in for summer 2025: from 29 June to 14 September 2025, service transfers temporarily to the '800 Hall. If the fresco ceiling is the primary reason you are considering this address, book before late June or after mid-September. Visiting during the transfer period is not necessarily a reason to skip the restaurant entirely, but it changes the calculus , you are paying €€€ prices for the kitchen rather than the full room.
Chef Agostino Schettino draws from across Italy rather than anchoring exclusively in Emilian tradition, then filters that range through a modern approach. The tasting menu dedicated to Bologna , named La Dotta, la Grassa e la Rossa, after the city's three historical epithets , is the most coherent argument for booking here rather than elsewhere. The signature within it is tortellini with 36-month Parmesan cream, a dish that speaks directly to why Bologna's food culture has the reputation it does. Tortellini made with aged Parmesan cream rather than a more generic broth or butter finish is a technically considered choice, and 36-month Parmigiano-Reggiano has a depth and crystalline texture that a shorter-aged cheese cannot replicate.
For the food-focused traveller, the Bologna tasting menu is the clearest reason to choose I Carracci over a more casual Bolognese trattoria. If you want to understand why this city's cooking has the standing it does among Italian food people, a structured tasting focused on local tradition , interpreted by a chef who has also worked with pan-Italian reference points , gives you more context than ordering à la carte from a broader menu. Seasonal menus in Italian hotel dining rooms of this calibre tend to rotate with market availability, so the specific dishes beyond the tortellini will depend on when you visit. Autumn and winter visits to Bologna generally offer the richest larder: porcini, truffles from the nearby Apennines, and the full range of cured products that define Emilian cuisine at its most compelling. Spring visits bring lighter preparations. Summer, when the room is also in transition, is the least essential season to be here.
I Carracci works well for food and travel enthusiasts who want a structured, historically contextualised meal rather than a purely contemporary tasting experience. The hotel setting provides a certain formality and a level of service infrastructure , wine service, pacing, attention to dietary requirements , that independent trattatorie in Bologna sometimes cannot match at the same price point. It is also a strong choice for a business dinner or a special occasion where the architecture of the room adds to the occasion, provided you are booking outside the summer transfer period.
It is less compelling if you are primarily interested in cutting-edge modern Italian cooking. For that, I Portici operates at €€€€ and pushes into more experimental territory. If your budget is tighter or you want something closer to a Bolognese neighbourhood restaurant, Al Cambio and Trattoria Battibecco both offer strong local cooking at lower price points. For a broader picture of where to eat across the city, Pearl's full Bologna restaurants guide covers the range.
Compared to similarly positioned classic-cuisine hotel restaurants elsewhere in Italy , such as Dal Pescatore in Runate or Quattro Passi in Marina del Cantone, both of which operate at higher price tiers with Michelin stars , I Carracci represents a more accessible entry point into serious Italian hotel dining. For classic-cuisine restaurants operating at a comparable register in other European contexts, Obauer in Werfen offers an instructive comparison in terms of the hotel-restaurant format. Within Italy, if you are building a trip around serious eating, Osteria Francescana in Modena is 35 minutes away and operates at a fundamentally different level of ambition and price , useful context for calibrating where I Carracci sits.
| Venue | Awards | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| I Carracci | Attention: from 29/06 to 14/09/2025, service will be temporarily transferred to the '800 Hall. The ceiling entirely adorned with marvellous frescoes from the Carracci school—extraordinary Bolognese painters of the sixteenth century—already serves as a compelling incentive for selecting this venue for gourmet pauses. Young and talented Chef Agostino Schettino offers a cuisine drawing inspiration from across Italy, elaborated through a modern lens. Particularly noteworthy is the homage to Bologna with a tasting menu dedicated to the city—"La Dotta, la Grassa e la Rossa"—featuring classic 36-month Parmesan cream tortellini.; Michelin Plate (2025); Michelin Plate (2024) | €€€ | — |
| I Portici | Michelin 1 Star | €€€€ | — |
| Ahimè | €€ | — | |
| Oltre. | €€ | — | |
| Al Cambio | €€ | — | |
| Trattoria di Via Serra | € | — |
A quick look at how I Carracci measures up.
Book the Bologna tasting menu, 'La Dotta, la Grassa e la Rossa,' on your first visit — it anchors the meal in local identity while Chef Agostino Schettino filters wider Italian references through a modern approach. Note that from 29 June to 14 September 2025, service moves to the '800 Hall, so the famous Carracci-school frescoed ceiling will not be in play during that window. At €€€ pricing, this is a structured, multi-course format rather than a casual drop-in.
Yes — two consecutive Michelin Plates (2024, 2025), a frescoed dining room with documented sixteenth-century Carracci-school attribution, and a dedicated city tasting menu give this a credible special-occasion case. It suits milestone dinners where setting and culinary structure matter equally. If you want a more contemporary, chef-forward tasting experience, Oltre. in Bologna is a stronger fit.
The Michelin Plate recognition, €€€ price point, and a dining room defined by sixteenth-century frescoes signal a formal to dressed-up standard — think what you would wear to any other Michelin-noted restaurant in Italy. Jeans and trainers are likely out of place, but the venue data does not specify an explicit dress code, so err toward business casual or above.
For a more progressive tasting menu at a similar price tier, Oltre. and Ahimè are the closer comparisons. Al Cambio and I Portici offer comparable formality with deeper Michelin credentials. Trattoria di Via Serra is the right alternative if you want Bolognese classics in a lower-pressure, lower-cost setting rather than a structured modern format.
The venue data does not confirm a bar or counter dining option at I Carracci. Given the restaurant's format — Michelin-noted, €€€, structured tasting menu — casual bar seating would be atypical for this category. check the venue's official channels before planning an informal visit.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.