PACA reopened at Tenuta Ceri in Carmignano on 10 September 2026, moving Niccolò Palumbo’s restaurant from Prato into a new building surrounded by vines. The opening menus, Collina and Disordine, each comprise seven courses at €110 per person, excluding wine.
Most restaurant relocations buy a better view and nothing else.
This one changes what surrounds the kitchen: a working Carmignano DOCG winery, two wood-fired ovens and a barbecue outside the door, and a dining room built for this particular slope rather than inherited from whoever had the lease before. For anyone choosing a serious dinner beyond Florence, Carmignano is now worth considering on its own terms.
The new address is an estate, not a second branch
PACA opened in Prato in 2019 and took a Michelin star there in November 2022, the province’s first in about a decade. Its move to Tenuta Ceri was announced in June; the 10 September reopening report confirms that the new restaurant is now operating. This is PACA’s next home, and the Prato dining room is closed.
Architect Luca Ceri founded the estate in 2006. His son Edoardo runs it now. The stated intention is to bring wine production and hospitality closer together, and pulling a starred restaurant into that plan is the most expensive way to prove you mean it, because the food then has to justify the drive on its own, without help from the tasting room.
For a returning PACA guest, the continuity is Palumbo and the restaurant’s identity. For a first-time visitor, the useful starting point is the new address rather than a review of dinner in Prato several years ago. The old room’s Michelin distinction is part of the history, not a substitute for assessing the new experience.
A building that gives ground to the vines
The architecture has more character than the usual glass pavilion beside a vineyard. Italian opening coverage describes a curved building with generous glazing and a double-height space. Corten elements reinterpret the perforated brickwork known in Tuscany as mandolato; Bardiglio Nuvolato marble adds a more polished note, while a partition refers to traditional reed matting.
The reference is agricultural without turning the room into a reconstructed farmhouse. That feels appropriate for a chef leaving a city address: the design gives ground to the vineyard while letting the restaurant stay contemporary.
Outside, two wood-fired ovens and a barbecue.
Promising tools. Whether fire becomes a coherent part of Palumbo’s cooking or a spectacle staged outside the windows is the thing to watch, and it will not be settled by an opening menu.
Collina and Disordine: the opening menu prices
La Nazione’s opening report gives the following formats. The prices describe the food; they should not be read as an all-inclusive evening.
| Menu | Format | Price per person |
|---|---|---|
| Collina | Seven courses | €110; wine excluded |
| Disordine | Seven courses | €110; wine excluded |
The names suggest two approaches. They tell you nothing about the dishes, the dietary options or the pairing. Ask for the current menu before choosing, especially when one diner has restrictions. Choosing between two equally priced sequences comes down to what the kitchen is cooking, and never to what “Collina” or “Disordine” sounds like it might mean.
Seven courses is a destination dinner.
It is not a stop between an aperitivo and another reservation. Leave the evening to PACA and arrange the drive home around the meal, instead of compressing seven courses to meet a later appointment.
The wine has an address too
The estate’s Carmignano DOCG programme brings together Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Its vineyards include plots with a history reaching back to the 1950s, according to Tenuta Ceri’s own account of the land.
For the guest, the proximity of the winery creates a useful opportunity: understanding a wine at its source before encountering it alongside the cooking. A cellar visit and dinner are still separate arrangements unless expressly combined in the booking. The setting should encourage curiosity, not an assumption that a tour or a particular pairing is included.
There is also a drinks space above the dining level. The opening report describes an offer that extends beyond conventional cocktails to kombucha and house-made fermented drinks. That gives diners not drinking wine something more interesting to enquire about than a replacement glass of juice.
Dinner is open; an overnight stay is another question
The wider development announced in June includes seven units, described in local reporting as six rooms and an independent apartment. They are not open. Tenuta Ceri’s own site still marks hospitality as coming soon, and the rooms are expected in October.
So book PACA as a restaurant and arrange the bed somewhere else.
For now, our Tuscany hotel guide covers the alternatives. Choose the base and the restaurant together: a beautiful hotel on the wrong side of the region will not make a convenient pairing merely because both addresses are described as Tuscan.
The current estate address is Via delle Ginestre 45, Carmignano. Tenuta Ceri publishes a dedicated PACA telephone number, +39 055 0981593, and the email ristorantepaca@tenutaceri.it. Opening days and service hours have not been published, so ask when you call.
Luxury.it perspective
A star-holding chef leaving a city centre for a vineyard is a bet that people will drive.
Palumbo was born in Prato, trained under Cannavacciuolo at Villa Crespi, then Berasategui’s Lasarte and Bracali, and opened PACA at 31. Moving it to a purpose-built room at 35 hectares of Carmignano with two wood-fired ovens outside the door is not a downshift into the countryside. It is the same cooking given more to work with, and a higher bar, because a diner driving out from Florence has to be paid back for the drive.
Book it now as a dinner. Look again in October, when the rooms are due and the evening can become a night.
Related guides
For a base in the region, the Restaurants section covers the rest of the Tuscan table.
