The Top 33 Places to Eat Near Pizzarè
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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 2. 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 3. 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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Rank 4. Qafiz
Calabrian
The drive through Aspromonte's olive groves and wild hillsides is, itself, part of the meal. Qafiz is a Michelin-starred omakase restaurant where a handful of seats wrap around an open kitchen in a farmhouse deep in Calabria, and the chef builds a tasting menu that reads like a portrait of the region. Remote enough that guests often just stay the night, which the property accommodates.
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Rank 5. 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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Rank 6. Taverna Kerkira
Mediterranean
Steps from the Lungomare in Bagnara Calabra, this intimate trattoria has been around forever and holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand for cooking that threads Calabrian and Greek flavors together without making a fuss about it. The chef's roots do the talking: squid stuffed with feta, swordfish prepared with care. Small room, warm room, the kind of place where you feel less like a customer than a guest someone actually wanted to show up.
- 50 Top Italy #34 · The Best Italian Restaurants - Modern Trattorias And Bistros
- Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
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Rank 7. Gambero Rosso
Mediterranean Seafood
A one-Michelin-star seafood restaurant on the Ionian coast where bergamot and chili turn up in the sauces and the fish arrives tasting like it never left the water. The chef keeps things clean and regional, from crudo to grilled catch, without a lot of ceremony around it. The wine list leans Calabrian, which feels right, and the local sparkling Gaglioppo is a genuine find alongside the raw preparations.
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Rank 8. 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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Rank 9. Vecchio Porto
Seafood
A seafood restaurant on the waterfront at Villa San Giovanni, where the second-floor terrace looks straight across the Strait of Messina toward Sicily. The fish comes off the grill simply, or arrives raw in preparations that lean more creative, and the kitchen holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Most visitors here are catching a ferry; the ones who know are booking a table instead.
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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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Rank 11. Blanco Osteria da Fabio
Calabrian Seafood
A short walk from the waterfront in Siderno, this seafood and Calabrian trattoria keeps its menu tight and its cooking rooted in what the coast actually produces. The housemade fresh pasta is the thing to focus on, scialatielli with shrimp and stracciatella being a local favorite, and the bread arrives with an artisanal oil that tastes like the region in one dip. Warm, unhurried, and selected by the Michelin Guide.
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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.
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Rank 13. 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 14. Lapprodo
Seafood
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Rank 15. Vincenzo Fotia – L’Artigiano della Pizza
Neapolitan Pizza
A Neapolitan-style pizza shop in Siderno where the dough is soft, the cornicione properly charred, and the owner is the kind of person who ends his shift eating with his family in the dining room, which tells you everything. The menu leans into Calabrian touches, including a spicy Locride sauce that earns its place. Gluten-free options are taken seriously here, not treated as an afterthought.
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Rank 16. La Cascina 1899
Calabrian
A late-19th-century farmhouse on the Calabrian coast road, stone walls and wooden ceilings inside, a sprawling terrace when the weather cooperates. The kitchen leans on the Ionian Sea for its menu, so fish and seafood do most of the talking, though meat shows up for those who ask. A shop next door sells regional products, including bergamot from the groves nearby, some of it made in-house.
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Rank 17. Locanda Toscano
Seafood Mediterranean
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Rank 18. San Domenico
Contemporary Seafood
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Messina's arancini come with saffron in the rice here, which already sets them apart, and Rosticceria Famulari pushes further with thirty-odd variations, from pistachio to eggplant alla norma to mortadella with stringy cheese. This old-school street food counter in the city center also does pitone and mozzarella in carrozza, the full Messina rotisserie repertoire. It ranked fifth on the 50 Top Italy street food list, which the locals probably already knew.
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Rank 20. Marina del Nettuno
Creative Seafood
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Rank 21. La Ristobottega
Calabrian
Half deli, half bistro, with the kitchen deciding which half you're in based on the hour. At lunch it's a casual counter among local salumi and cheeses; come evening, the shop quiets down and wooden tables and soft lighting take over for proper Calabrian cooking with a contemporary edge. The fish is aged on site, and the menu moves between local catch and the occasional Wagyu cut, which feels like a reasonable range of ambition for one room.
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Rank 22. L'A Gourmet L'Accademia
Modern Seafood
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Rank 23. L’Orso
Neapolitan Pizza
A Neapolitan pizza spot in Messina with a longer reach than most: in summer the whole operation shifts to Blanco Beach Club on the Strait, where you eat with water views instead of walls. High-hydration doughs and long leavening are the kitchen's religion, with a pronounced crust alongside Roman-style and fried options. A second location near the Duomo adds a proper sit-down dining angle for those who want more than a slice.
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Rank 25. Modì
Sicilian
A terrace with a clear line to the Aeolian Islands is a reasonable excuse to linger over a Sicilian dinner, and the kitchen here gives you plenty of other reasons. This is a relaxed but serious restaurant in a small village outside Messina, with tasting menus that run a few courses and an à la carte side for those who prefer to choose. The wine list leans Sicilian and priced without greed, which is its own kind of hospitality.
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Rank 26. Cura Cucina Contemporanea
Calabrian
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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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Rank 28. 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 29. 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 30. 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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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 32. Doppio Gusto
Sicilian Seafood
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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.