Restaurants in Bologna: Sabbia di Mare

The Introvert Traveler

Mar 153 min read

Last visit : March 2025

My rating : 7/10

Price : €€€/€€€€€

Sabbia di Mare restaurant in Bologna offers a culinary experience focused on innovative seafood dishes, prepared with advanced techniques such as dry-age aging and grilling.

The menu is built around the freshness of the catch, with particular attention to the aging of the fish , a practice that allows for softer consistencies and intensified flavors. Added to this is the use of embers, which give a smoky note to the dishes and help define a distinctive character to the culinary proposal.

Environment

The environment is refined and modern, with a welcoming but elegant atmosphere. The staff is prepared and available to guide customers through a menu full of technical details and original proposals.

The tasting

The gastronomic journey begins with a selection of raw fish , among which bold combinations stand out, such as the fish of the day served with grilled orange and bottarga, a meeting between freshness and slightly bitter and smoky notes; it is probably the dish that I appreciated the most; at the beginning the orange seemed to prevail and cover the flavor of the fish, but after a few seconds the combination left a persistent flavor of the sea that intensified as the minutes passed; very interesting.

The first courses are not limited to the classic pasta with fish, but offer reinterpretations of traditional dishes : for example, the cappelletti romagnoli are combined with raw fish and a pesto of stridoli, a wild herb that adds a herbaceous and slightly bitter touch.

Among the second courses, grilled red tuna is a choice that enhances the quality of the raw material, served with a white caponata that balances the flavor with acidity and sweetness.

Some dishes did not convince me, such as the octopus with onion soup and fried bread, a dish not very balanced where the flavor of the onion prevailed over everything; the flavor of the octopus was absent and the dish was nothing special even if we wanted to consider it a simple soup d'oignon (the flavor of the octopus not having arrived).

For those who want to fully immerse themselves in the experience offered by the kitchen, there are two tasting itineraries , one dedicated to raw food and the other to grilled preparations, both well-designed to offer a complete overview of the restaurant's philosophy.

The wine list features relatively few but well-selected labels.

I didn't try the desserts, but I appreciated the variety of bitters on offer (in this case I tried an Ulrich bitter, which I didn't know and which surprised me with its hint of anise).

The price of the tasting menu is 50 euros per person, excluding wine.