“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 travelled, 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 multi-day culinary-focused excursion from Rome to Abruzzo, a project she co-created with Romito. “It’s the social element that makes him special.”
Photograph courtesy of Alt Stazione del Gusto
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.”
