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Dining among the stones of an ancient Roman amphitheatre as the sun sets over Verona, the orchestra tunes below and thousands of spectators begin to take their seats. The Star Roof Experience transforms the hours before the opera into a performance of its own, with a menu created by Emanuele Scarello as the prelude to an extraordinary night at the Arena di Verona.
After the inevitable frenzy of European airports at the height of summer, arriving in Verona brings an immediate change of pace.
The city is compact, walkable and extraordinarily beautiful. As evening approaches, its streets retain an unexpected sense of stillness even as they begin to fill with people. Everything feels close, and somewhere between illuminated façades, piazzas and narrow streets, walking itself quickly becomes part of the experience.
That evening, however, our destination was not exactly among the seats of the Arena.
The team behind the Star Roof Experience, one of the most exclusive offerings of the 103rd Arena di Verona Opera Festival, was waiting for us.
And then we went up. The rush disappeared.
Star Roof Experience: The Prelude to a Night at the Arena di Verona
To call what followed a sublime experience would almost be an injustice.
Because here, practically no sense escapes the moment.
First comes the awareness of where you are.
The Arena di Verona was built in the first century AD and, nearly two thousand years later, still welcomes thousands of spectators within its walls. The Star Roof Experience takes place on the Terrazza delle Stelle — the Terrace of the Stars — an extraordinary and little-known corner of the Arena connecting the amphitheatre’s first ring to the surviving wing of the earthquake of 1117, which has since become one of its defining symbols.
From here, Piazza Bra and its historic Liston unfold from an entirely different perspective.
And only 24 guests per evening are given access to experience it.
Just a handful of tables.
The stones of the Arena within arm’s reach.
Verona stretching out before us.
The first glasses appearing on the table.
And then comes something no photograph can fully capture:
the sound.
From inside the Arena, we can hear the orchestra preparing for the performance.
One instrument.
Then another.
Fragments of music not yet connected, tuning and rehearsals mingling with another sound that gradually begins to rise: the excitement of spectators arriving and taking their seats.
As we dine, the Arena awakens.
And at some point it becomes clear that, somehow, the performance has already begun.
Emanuele Scarello: Five Generations of Italian Cuisine Take the Stage
For the 2026 season, the culinary experience at Star Roof was entrusted to Italian chef Emanuele Scarello, one of the recognised figures of contemporary Italian fine dining and heir to a family story that began in 1887.
Scarello represents the fifth generation behind Agli Amici 1887, in Godia, near Udine, a restaurant that has remained in his family for nearly 140 years and today holds two Michelin stars.
The Michelin Guide recognises Agli Amici as one of the leading expressions of contemporary Friulian cuisine, highlighting Scarello’s constant research, profound understanding of his territory and ability to use food as a way of expressing the cultural and gastronomic richness of a borderland.
It is a philosophy that has travelled beyond the family home. Agli Amici has also reached the Croatian coast with Agli Amici Rovinj, where the kitchen, led by Simone De Lucca under Emanuele Scarello’s supervision, is also part of the Michelin selection.
His presence at Star Roof, then, feels particularly fitting.
A family tradition that began in the nineteenth century and has been reinterpreted generation after generation arrives inside a monument that, on an entirely different scale, has spent almost two thousand years doing much the same thing:
surviving through transformation.
For the Arena, Scarello created a journey inspired by the territory, the sea, the land and the seasons, interpreting flavours connected to Venetian tradition through his contemporary culinary language.
And he chose to do so using the language of the place in which the dinner would unfold.
The menu is structured as a performance.
Four acts.
Although our evening had five courses.
Because before the first act, appropriately enough, came a small overture.
The Overture
An amuse-bouche of zucchini flower was the first bite of the evening.
It arrived as the first glasses were being poured and the sun began its slow descent over Verona.
It was only the beginning of a sequence in which it would soon become difficult to separate what was happening on the plate from everything happening around it.
Because here, dishes do not arrive alone.
They arrive with Roman arches behind them.
With the city spread out ahead.
With the murmur of Piazza Bra.
With an orchestra tuning in the distance.
Then, formally, the performance begins.
Atto I — La Materia
The first act brings baccalà, tomato water and Mediterranean notes to the table.
It marks the beginning of Scarello’s journey through produce and territory, accompanied by a wine selection designed to converse with each stage of the menu.
As the first course arrives, the landscape continues its own performance.
The light changes.
Glasses are filled.
Conversation begins.
And below us, the Arena continues to awaken.
Atto II — Il Mare e la Terra
Next come the lukewarm spaghetti with aubergine and smoked sardines.
Sea and land brought together on the same plate.
By now, something begins to happen that is difficult to explain until you are there: the boundary between what is taking place at the table and everything happening around it becomes increasingly blurred.
You eat.
You drink.
You talk.
And behind your wine glass stands a Roman arch.
Spectators continue to arrive. The murmur of the Arena grows. The golden light slowly begins to turn into sunset.
Everything belongs to the same moment.
Atto III — La Brace
The third act brings charcoal-grilled Garronese beef with bay leaf and cherries.
By this point, the experience has fully unfolded.
Each course arrives with wines carefully paired to accompany it. During our dinner, these included a Lugana from Sartori, alongside Beaumont des Crayères Champagne.
Yet there is something no label could reproduce anywhere else.
Lifting your glass.
And finding behind it a Roman structure that has stood for nearly two thousand years.
Because the true luxury of Star Roof does not reside solely in what is inside the glass.
It lies in the context.
Atto IV — Il Dolce
Finally comes the zuppa di pesche: peach and sage, burnt vanilla cream and meringue.
The final course.
And it coincides almost perfectly with another transformation.
Daylight begins to disappear.
Verona lights up.
The seats below are filling.
The excitement of the audience mingles with an orchestra drawing ever closer to that moment when it will stop preparing and truly begin to play.
We, too, are almost ready to leave our table.
That evening, La Traviata awaits.
Five courses.
Four acts.
And the opera has not even begun.
The True Luxury of the Star Roof Experience
There are extraordinary dinners.
There are restaurants with spectacular views.
There are VIP packages and experiences built around almost every major cultural event in the world.
Star Roof has something far more difficult to manufacture:
context.
Its exclusivity does not lie solely in the fact that only 24 people can access the Terrazza delle Stelle.
It lies in spending a few hours with an extraordinarily intimate perspective of a monument we usually experience through its sheer scale.
The Arena ceases to be simply the vast amphitheatre dominating Piazza Bra.
Suddenly, its stones are beside you.
You can examine them up close.
Hear what is happening inside.
Look out over Verona from among them.
Raise a glass as the sun sets while, at the same time, listening to an orchestra preparing to play Verdi.
It is impossible not to think about time.
Not the time on a clock, nor the rush of travelling through Europe in the middle of summer.
The other kind.
The time that has passed through these stones.
The centuries separating first-century Rome from the 1853 premiere of La Traviata.
The distance between Verdi and us.
And that extraordinary instant when all those periods of history seem to coexist within a single evening.
An Experience That Also Helps Preserve the Arena
There is another detail that gives this privilege an additional dimension.
Star Roof was not conceived solely as a hospitality experience surrounding the Arena Opera Festival. The initiative also contributes to raising funds for projects dedicated to the preservation of the Arena, alongside the Comune di Verona and the authorities responsible for the city’s archaeological, artistic and landscape heritage.
And that subtly changes the meaning of being there.
For a few hours, you are granted extraordinary access to a monument that has survived for almost two millennia.
Part of the experience also contributes to helping it continue to do so.
When the Opera Begins Before the Opera
Perhaps that is why prelude is such an apt way to describe the Star Roof Experience.
The dinner does not attempt to compete with what comes next.
It anticipates it.
Service accompanies the evening with remarkable ease. The wines continue to arrive. The sky changes colour. Spectators take their seats. The orchestra edges closer to that instant when isolated sounds will cease to be preparation and become music.
And as we watch the sun disappear over Verona, we know that La Traviata awaits us that evening.
Except that, somehow, we are already inside it.
When we finally leave the table and make our way to our seats, there is no real interruption.
Only a change of stage.
And perhaps that is the greatest achievement of the Star Roof Experience: understanding that a great night at the opera does not have to begin when the first singer steps onto the stage.
It can begin much earlier.
With a zucchini flower.
A glass of Champagne.
Golden light falling over Verona.
An orchestra tuning among stones that have stood for almost two thousand years.
And the absolute awareness of the privilege of being there.
Star Roof Experience is not simply dinner before the opera.
It is the first act of a night at the Arena di Verona.
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