The Top 31 Places to Eat Near Il Gambero
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A three-generation family of pizza makers on the Calabrian coast, the Sesto crew keep reinventing their menu each year with enough conviction to make tradition feel like a moving target. The pizzeria leans into local character, pairing Tropea onion and fresh anchovies with double tomato, while a white pizza nods to the retro glamour of ham and melon. Comfortable neighborhood spot, serious dough.
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Rank 2. Abbruzzino Oltre
Contemporary Mediterranean
A Michelin-starred fine dining room inside a former military and ecclesiastical palazzo on Lamezia Terme's main promenade. The chef Luca Abbruzzino runs a no-choice tasting menu, meaning you hand the evening over to him and trust he'll do something interesting with dry-aged fish, local prawns, and bergamot. The setting is spare and contemporary, modern art against old stone, and the service is the kind that makes the whole thing feel quietly romantic without trying too hard.
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Rank 3. San Domenico
Contemporary Seafood
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Rank 4. Locanda Toscano
Seafood Mediterranean
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Rank 5. Lapprodo
Seafood
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Rank 6. Premiata Forneria Vibo Valentia
Neapolitan Pizza
A Calabrian pizzeria with a menu long enough to cause genuine indecision, from fried starters to montanarine to a full regional dessert spread. The Neapolitan-style pies are contemporary and well-leavened, with one named for the local tuna company Callipo, which is either charming regionalism or great marketing, probably both. Courteous service, easy parking nearby, and bookings taken via WhatsApp if that tells you anything about the vibe.
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Rank 7. De' Minimi
Calabrian
A former monastery just outside Tropea, now home to a tasting-menu restaurant where the citrus fruit on your plate may have been growing in the garden an hour before. The kitchen works through contemporary Calabrian cooking across multi-course menus, leaning on vegetables and produce from the property. The wine list keeps it regional, and there's a bar if you'd rather start with a cocktail than a pairing.
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The name is not accidental: the dough here snaps under your teeth in a way that makes ordering a second pizza feel like a reasonable decision. This is a pizzeria in Catanzaro with a menu that runs from respectful classics to bolder gourmet combinations, plus Roman-style thin-crust and a spread of fried starters. The sourcing is taken seriously, and the result is a lighter-than-expected pie. It appears in 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias listing.
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A pizza dedicated to the Calabrian onion sounds like a narrow brief, but it tells you everything about how this pizzeria in central Tropea operates. Contemporary Neapolitan-style pies anchor the menu, with local appetizers and pitte rounding out a spread that leans hard into regional ingredients. The room has the feel of somewhere the owner genuinely cares about, which in Tropea is either a given or a small miracle, depending on your luck.
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The dough is the point here, and the kitchen knows it. This pizzeria in a small Calabrian town turns out light, carefully fermented crusts in both thin-crispy and contemporary styles, with single-portion options built on studied flour blends. Toppings are restrained and original rather than showy. The fried starters deserve serious attention, and the beer list holds its own. The room is genuinely pleasant and the staff act like they mean it.
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A wood-fired oven visible from the street and a giant paddle on the sign announce what Era Ora is about before you've even pushed the door open. It's a pizza restaurant in Rende, the university town just outside Cosenza, and the menu meanders through fried snacks, salads, and pasta before arriving at the main event. The house pizza, topped with capocollo from a historic local salumeria, is a good place to land.
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The sandwich here starts with bread baked fresh that day, then gets filled with Calabrian sausage, 'nduja, Tropea onions, or caciocavallo from the Sila plateau, depending on your mood. It's a fast-casual spot built around showcasing small local producers, which sounds like a pitch deck but eats like lunch. The formula has been spreading to other Italian cities, and 50 Top Italy ranked it first among the country's sandwiches.
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The crunchy Cosenza-style pizza is the reason to find this small pizzeria in Rende, where around thirty seats fill a room with a short, rotating menu of about fifteen pizzas built around a tight circle of named suppliers. The seasonal list changes, but the sourcing stays fixed. Doubles as a breakfast spot with proper leavened pastries and organic juice, which is either a charming detail or proof they take dough seriously at every hour.
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Rank 14. Agorà
Contemporary Seafood
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A pizzeria where you can finish any pie with a honey and 'nduja crust, a parmesan fondue, or shaved fresh truffle, which tells you something about how seriously the menu takes customization. Dough matures for 24 hours, and the options run from classic to gourmet, with cocktail pairing suggestions alongside. Seventeen beers on tap or in bottle, many from Calabrian craft brewers, keep the drinks list from being an afterthought.
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A Calabrian pizzeria that closes out the meal with a pizza based on pitta 'mpigliata, a regional Christmas pastry, which tells you exactly how seriously the team takes the full arc of a visit. Six people work the ovens with the kind of precision that makes you feel like you should be quieter. Reservations are genuinely hard to come by. It ranks in the 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World lists, and the dessert menu won a 50 Top Pizza special award.
- 50 Top Pizza #38 · 50 Top Pizza World
- 50 Top Pizza #10 · 50 Top Pizza Italy
- 50 Top Pizza 2026 · Migliore Carta dei Dessert · 50 Top Pizza Italy Special Awards
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Rank 17. PizzaRosso
Pizza
A big bar counter anchors the room at this Rende pizzeria, which locals treat as the reliable option on nights when everything else in the Cosenza area has given up and gone home. The pies lean creative, pairing cooked pears with speck and smoked ricotta or stacking three preparations of zucchini on one pizza. A separate gluten-free oven and around twenty beers on tap round things out.
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A contemporary pizza spot in Rende where the dough is the whole argument: light, well hydrated, and sturdy enough to carry toppings that add without shouting. The menu moves between straightforward classics and more adventurous variations, and the craft beer list is the kind that rewards a second look. The room is modern and informal without feeling like a set piece, and the kitchen keeps pace even when the place fills up.
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Rank 19. A la Villa
Roman-style Pizza
A pizzeria on Soverato's main piazza where the dough does the heavy lifting: light, contemporary, and handled with care. Round pies share the menu with Roman-style slices and single-portion pizzas built around toppings chosen to match each format. The fried montanarine are worth ordering separately. Draft beers and cocktails round things out, and the staff are the kind who make you feel like they remembered you from last time.
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Rank 20. Brezza fish and chill
Seafood
A casual fish spot right on the Soverato seafront promenade, where the menu is built around the idea that good fish needs very little help. Catch comes fried, raw, tucked into rolls, or piled onto friselle bread, with generous salads and house-made desserts filling out the gaps. Wine by the glass and cocktails, including creative originals in the evening, keep things lively. The Michelin Guide has it on their radar.
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Rank 21. Cura Cucina Contemporanea
Calabrian
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Rank 22. Gulìo_Pizzeriaandmore
Neapolitan Pizza
A Neapolitan pizza spot in a small Calabrian hill town where the dough is kept light and most of what goes on it comes from nearby. The room is modern without trying hard, the kind of place that works equally well for a family Tuesday or a Friday out with friends. Sandwiches and bar service round things out when pizza feels like a commitment. The staff, by all accounts, treat strangers like regulars from the first visit.
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Rank 23. Hyle
Calabrian
Sitting on the Sila plateau, a forested highland that the ancient Greeks had opinions about, Hyle is a modern Calabrian restaurant that traces a single region's landscape from coastline to mountain peak. The chef holds a Michelin star and sources vegetables, walnuts, and aromatic herbs directly from local growers. Tasting menus named in Calabrian dialect move through seven or eleven courses, depending on how deep into the hills you want to go.
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Rank 24. Il Carpaccio
Calabrian
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Rank 25. Vadolì
Pizza
The wine list runs to dozens of Calabrian labels and the draft taps rotate five at a time, which tells you something about how seriously this pizzeria takes the whole meal, not just the dough. Vadolì has been an institution in the province of Cosenza long enough that regulars stop reading the menu, though the toppings keep changing. It ranked 80th on 50 Top Pizza Italy.
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A 48-hour ferment and a wood-fired oven are the baseline here, and the crust comes out high and airy in a way that makes you notice. Agape sits on the waterfront at Cetraro Marina and has become a go-to for contemporary pizza along this stretch of Calabria. The menu leans into local ingredients with some care, and the fried dishes draw their own following alongside the pies.
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Rank 27. Gioja’s
Neapolitan Pizza
A Neapolitan pizza spot in Gioia Tauro with a pool, which sets the mood before you've even ordered. The dough is contemporary in technique but classic in flavor, and local Calabrian ingredients show up in ways that feel earned rather than gimmicky. The drinks list, cocktails, gin, and wines, gets real attention. Young crowds fill the room on warm nights, and the energy stays loose without tipping into chaos.
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Rank 28. Neapolis
Neapolitan Pizza
A wood-fired oven and a firm no to anything fancy: this Calabrian pizzeria plants its flag in classic Neapolitan tradition and doesn't waver. The dough is carefully made, the fried montanare and calzones hold their own alongside the pizzas, and the panuozzi are worth the carb reckoning. Prices stay reasonable enough that regulars actually come back without a special occasion as cover. Neapolitan desserts round things out.
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Pizza spot in Rizziconi where the dough is soft and the fried starters, including cacio e pepe supplì and pasta frittata, arrive before you've had time to settle in. The menu leans into Calabrian identity, with a pizza built around struncatura, the region's once-humble pasta, making a quiet case for local ingredients. Service is meticulous and the room is contemporary without trying too hard. Ranked on 50 Top Pizza Italy.
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Rank 30. De Gustibus - Maurizio
Seafood
A family-run seafood restaurant in the historic center of Palmi where the catch of the day arrives as carpaccio dressed with house-made vinaigrette, and desserts are announced aloud at the table rather than printed on a card. The menu leans Mediterranean and fish-forward, though a small meat contingent gets its own section for anyone who wandered in by accident. The cannolo apparently shows up regardless.
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A pizzeria on the corner of a handsome old building along Gioiosa Ionica's main street, with a modern interior that still feels relaxed rather than designed. The dough is the whole story here: contemporary Neapolitan style, reliably well-leavened, with traditional options alongside enough variety that no one at the table is left negotiating. Good beer selection, friendly service, and a spot that locals in this Ionian coast town seem to treat as a given.