Juicy fried chicken isn’t the dish one might associate with the vast repertoire of Italian cooking, and yet it’s a signature at one of the most talked about casual dining establishments in Italy: A roadside restaurant called ALT, created by one of the country’s most decorated chefs.
ALT Stazione del Gusto is a rapidly expanding series of retro-futuristic rest stop restaurants along the autostrade run in collaboration between Accademia Niko Romito, a vocational culinary school run by chef Niko Romito of the three-Michelin Reale in Abruzzo, and Enilive, a sub-brand from the Italian energy company Eni that offers decarbonized services and products.
Travelers pop in and out or charge their hybrid or electric cars. They linger with a snack or a fresh meal while they wait in a space that’s bright, colorful, and comfortable, with a menu built around healthy variations on simple Italian street food and aperitivo staples.
There are generously portioned made-to-order sandwiches and crisp sourdough focaccia that is worth eating on its own. Romito’s fried chicken is the signature item for good reason—steamed at 154°, marinated in herbs, and then pressure-fried for 10 minutes to lock in moisture and keep the meat tender and light.
Tomato-soaked polpette are nostalgic and comforting, and savory versions of his bomba–short for bombolone, an Abruzzi doughnut that Romito’s father popularized in the 1970s at the bar pasticceria he ran in Rivisondoli—are fluffy wonders, made from natural yeast and extra-virgin olive oil to lighten the recipe. Each menu item is developed, tested, and, in some cases, prepared in advance–such as the bomba, which are heated and filled-to-order in Romito’s lab.
Roadside restaurants across much of Italy have historically been respectable places to dine, considering their real estate on characterless highways. And they’ve been romanticized for nearly as long by foreign travelers who see an espresso bar and long counter full of hot foods, panini, and piles of prosciutto as a sign of culinary superiority. Compared to what most Americans can access along the turnpike, they’re not wrong.
An icon of postwar Italian history that developed in lockstep with motorway infrastructure and car culture, the autogrill became more than a stopping point but an integral part of any road trip holiday. It thrived during the economic boom of the 1960s, and its appeal in the popular imagination crystallized through Italian film classics like Ro.Go.Pa.G. and Il Sorpasso, which prominently included truck stops and autogrill scenes that reinforced la dolce vita. Enter the financial bust of the 1970s and declining quality decade after decade and you have a proliferation of largely industrial hot meals and packaged snacks and panini. At their peak, Autogrill-branded restaurants accounted for 65% of all rest stops in the country.
“What is frustrating about these meals now is not only the hefty bill but the banality and repetitiveness of the offer,” says Angela Frenda, food writer and editor in chief of Cook Corriere. “Landscapes, colors and smells change outside your window as you make your way toward your holiday destination but the variety at the counter doesn’t. A pity, considering the gastronomic biodiversity of our country.”
To get that variety, travelers would need to veer off course and find their way into an old trattoria or specialty shop. That’s worth the detour but not always a realistic option. What’s attractive about Romito’s ALT project, insists Frenda, is that it delivers what Autogrill has not in a very long time– a “mix of modernity and tradition” with a menu that enhances, not cheapens, the road trip experience.
“What he has done is rekindle a part of Italian history,” explains Frenda about Romito’s success at creating what is effectively a modern gas station rest stop.
But before it became a concept with big-business-backing, it was just another Romito passion project that he believed had legs. The self-taught chef opened the first location in 2018 in Abruzzo’s Castel di Sangro. The medieval town, 130 miles east of Rome, is where Romito and his sister Cristiana Romito run their contemporary fine-dining institution set in a former 16th-century monastery—one of only 14 Italian restaurants to earn three Michelin stars. It’s also home to his culinary school and the bread and pastry lab that pumps out Panettone, ancient grain loaves that he serves daily alongside biscotti, and jams.
“I’ve always had a great passion for Italian street food, and when I was a child, I used to ask my father if I could accompany him on his car trips so that we could stop along the way and taste something, especially sandwiches,” says Romito. That curiosity has grown stronger as he has travelled Italy and around the world as the head chef at all locations of Bulgari Hotels & Resorts’ Il Ristorante.
And the more he’s traveled, the more he’s observed missed opportunities. “Whether I’m in the airport or on the highway, the options are very low quality compared to the possibilities.” ALT, then, was one solution to a problem. Not only should it be possible to bring better quality, uncomplicated but nourishing foods to the masses as they cruise the roads, it should be scalable. That’s where Enilive came in as a compelling partner to take Romito’s project far beyond Abruzzo.
"The thinking is that haute cuisine and big agribusiness can’t go together, but my feeling is that there needs to be dialogue to bring healthier options to more people," says Romito. “I can’t be there cooking at each place, but I can apply my food philosophy to a model and structure.”
It’s not the first time he has experimented with large-scale production. In collaboration with the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at La Sapienza University and the Giomi Service Group, Romito launched the Nutritional Intelligence program in 2016 to overhaul catering at the Cristo Re Hospital in Rome, developing healthier, lighter, and lower-waste meals and establishing processes that make the recipes replicable at scale.
This year he’s taking the same approach to rethink school canteens in his native region. “He uses his fine dining skills and plant-based knowledge for more than the diners at Reale,” says Julianna Angotti, founder of the travel concierge company Hiddenist, which offers a multiday culinary-focused excursion from Rome to Abruzzo, a project she co-created with Romito. “It’s the social element that makes him special.”
The first collaborative ALT opened inside the historic Eni service station on Roma’s Viale America in 2023, replacing what had been a McDonald’s outpost for two decades. Three additional Roman locations came next, followed by five ALT Stazione del Gusto openings in other parts of Italy by the end of 2024. This year the dining-on-the-go concept expands beyond Italy, beginning with locations in Vienna and Munich.
Each of Romito’s good-food-for-all endeavors, along with a new research and test lab in the works for 2026 in Castel di Sangro, is part of the same philosophy driving his trajectory as a chef and entrepreneur. “I’m focused on providing answers to our world’s food issues,” he explains. “Whether that’s in fine dining, on the side of the road, or in grocers, everyone should be able to eat well.”