Enrico Zanisi was born in Rome in 1990 into a family of musicians. His biography says he began chamber music at eight and came to jazz at fifteen, studying with Marco Di Gennaro. He earned a classical piano degree with honors at the L'Aquila Conservatory (where his teacher was Valter Fischetti) and a second-level jazz degree with honors at the Licinio Refice Conservatory in Frosinone. Along the way he attended Siena Jazz in 2005 and the Roma Jazz's Cool summer program, took part in a 2008 program at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and was selected for the jazz department of the Manhattan School of Music in New York in 2009. His biography lists his teachers and clinic leaders by initial and surname, among them K. Werner, J. Calderazzo, L. Grenadier, P. Markowitz and M. Stamm; the first and third presumably refer to Kenny Werner and Larry Grenadier, but those are teaching relationships from a biography, not recorded collaborations. A 2009 comment from Manhattan School pianist Phil Markowitz, quoted in his Dublin festival listing, says he "plays with an assuredness that belies his years."

Competition results came before the records did. He won first prize at the Franco Russo Jazz Piano Competition in Trieste in 2007, first prize and a special prize at the Chicco Bettinardi Jazz Competition in Piacenza in 2009, and the Vittoria Rotary Jazz Award in 2010. His first album, Quasi Troppo Serio (Nuccia, 2009), was a piano trio recorded in Rome in November 2008 with bassist Pietro Ciancaglini and drummer Ettore Fioravanti. Fioravanti's own records kept him working as a sideman: Zanisi is the pianist on Le Vie Del Pane E Del Fuoco (2011) and on Traditori (2014, where he also plays Hammond organ), both credited on Discogs.

The breakthrough was the trio with bassist Joe Rehmer and drummer Alessandro Paternesi. Life Variations (CAM Jazz, released September 4, 2012) was recorded at Artesuono in Cavalicco, near Udine, and consists mainly of his own compositions; in 2012 he was named Best New Talent in Musica Jazz's Top Jazz poll. Keywords (CAM Jazz, January 14, 2014), recorded in June 2013 at Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg, was received as a more assertive follow-up, and in 2014 he received the SIAE Prize for Creativity. Paternesi also plays with him on Dedicato (2012), the debut of Paternesi's P.O.V. Quintet, where Zanisi is the pianist alongside Francesco Diodati and Simone La Maida.

From there his own catalog moved through progressively less conventional formats, almost all on CAM Jazz. Right Now (2015) is a duo with alto saxophonist Mattia Cigalini, recorded in January 2014. Piano Tales (released February 19, 2016) is a solo piano album of eleven pieces recorded at Artesuono in May 2015, with liner notes by Brian Morton, and it was the basis of a solo tour that reached New Delhi in November 2016. Blend Pages (2018) is a septet in which he wrote for clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi, percussionist and electronics player Michele Rabbia and the French string quartet Quatuor IXI (violinists Régis Huby and Clément Janinet, violist Guillaume Roy and cellist Atsushi Sakaï), nine originals that one press description ties to Ravel, Debussy, Bartók and Bill Evans. Chamber Songs (2019), a duo with Mirabassi, was recorded live on June 5, 2018 at the Tonutti Winery in Adegliacco, one of the wine-cellar sessions CAM Jazz has issued, and pairs Schumann songs with original pieces.

Outside his own name he has 35 releases listed on Discogs, most of them as a sideman. In 2013 he is a co-billed member of Tetris, a Parco della Musica quintet record led by guitarist Antonio Jasevoli with trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso, tenor saxophonist Andy Sheppard and drummer Emanuele Smimmo, on which Discogs credits him as co-producer. He recorded with guitarist Alberto Parmegiani on Under A Shimmery Grace (2015) with bassist Francesco Ponticelli and drummer Enrico Morello, and Ponticelli and Morello reunite with him on Kon-Tiki (2017, Tǔk Music, executive-produced by Paolo Fresu). Morello is also his drummer in guitarist Francesco Diodati's Yellow Squeeds, for Flow, Home. (Auand, 2015) and Never The Same (2019), and on Andrea Molinari's 51 (2019) and Awakening (2025), the first of which also features trumpeter Alessandro Presti and singer Camilla Battaglia. Bassist Rosario Bonaccorso used him on A Beautiful Story (2017, with trumpeter Dino Rubino and Paternesi) and A New Home (2019, with saxophonist Stefano Di Battista); he and Paternesi made Woodstock Reloaded (2018) with bassist Enzo Pietropaoli's Wire Trio; and he joined saxophonist Enzo Favata and bassist Danilo Gallo on Inner Roads, a Jazzit magazine release from 2018.

The most recent Discogs credits are on the double bassist Jacopo Ferrazza's records Fantàsia (2022, with trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso) and Prometheus (2025), on which he plays piano, synthesizer and electronics. Aut Records' artist page also lists him on Danilo Gallo's EDE - Euristic Data Exchange, which is not itemized on Discogs. His biography says he has played with Sheila Jordan, Dave Liebman, Sarah Jane Morris, Logan Richardson, John Patitucci, Rick Margitza, Enrico Pieranunzi, Stefano Di Battista, Giovanni Tommaso, Francesco Cafiso, Paolo Fresu and Gabriele Mirabassi, and at festivals including Umbria Jazz, MITO, Time in Jazz, Piano City Milano, Bergamo Jazz and Vicenza Jazz, as well as Dublin's 12 Points festival, the Tabarka Jazz Festival in Tunisia and the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival.

Zanisi is a classically trained pianist who plays jazz as a composer first. All About Jazz's review of Life Variations notes an album made up of his own originals, and the trio's Dublin festival listing compares its standards playing to Keith Jarrett and John Taylor; DownBeat's line about "modern original pieces, in which blues, bebop, swing and classical music coexist" describes the same blend. Discogs tags Keywords with both Jazz and Classical, and its closing track is titled "Träumerei." On Piano Tales he plays "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" and "O Du Mein Holder Abendstern" alongside originals, and on Chamber Songs he and Mirabassi rework four Schumann songs and a cantilena on a Scarlatti sonata, treating the classical repertoire the way an improviser does. Blend Pages pushes that thread furthest, scoring a jazz pianist's writing for a string quartet, clarinet and electronics.

The other strand runs through his sideman work: Fender Rhodes and synthesizer in Diodati's Yellow Squeeds and Molinari's fusion-leaning 51, keyboards on the electronic Noise In The Box (2013, Tosky Records) with guitarist Luigi Masciari and tenor saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti, and pop and rock reinterpretations with the Radio Trio (Radio Trio, 2013) and singer Federica Zammarchi's Bowie tribute Jazz Oddity (2011). In these settings he works as a keyboardist as much as a pianist.