The Top 100 Restaurants Near Impero
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Rank 1. Impero
Piedmontese
The paniscia, a Novarese risotto with beans and salami, is reason enough to find this old-school trattoria in the small town of Sizzano. The Naggi sisters have run it forever, keeping the menu firmly Piedmontese: fresh homemade pasta, stuffed boiled chicken carved tableside from a trolley, an impressive cellar of local labels. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of room where regulars never need to check what's in season.
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Set inside the Cantine Nervi winery, this contemporary restaurant wraps you around an open kitchen with a long counter for eating alongside the cooks or proper tables if you prefer. The menu leans creative, and while Piedmontese meat is no surprise, the kitchen keeps slipping in seafood, including a raw tuna plate built for dipping into sauces with a lean toward the East. House wines dominate the list, many poured by the glass.
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Rank 3. Capuccina
Piedmontese
A 16th-century farmhouse amid open countryside, with a kitchen garden out back supplying the dining room within. This is a contemporary Piedmontese restaurant where the chef keeps the ingredient list short and the flavors recognizably old-school, pulling modern technique into the background rather than the foreground. The wine list leans deep into the lesser-known appellations of Upper Piedmont, Ghemme, Gattinara, Boca, and Sizzano, plus bottles from the estate itself.
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Rank 4. Villa Crespi
Creative, Mediterranean Cuisine
A Moorish-style villa on the shores of Lake Orta, with elaborate ceilings and parquet floors that make you feel slightly underdressed no matter what you wore. This is Antonino Cannavacciuolo's flagship fine dining restaurant, holding three Michelin stars, where the kitchen fuses Campanian brightness with Piedmontese tradition. The menu runs à la carte or two tasting menus, and the wine list is the kind that requires a quiet moment to navigate properly.
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Rank 5. Al Sorriso
Piedmontese
A self-taught cook and her husband, a dining room maître in the old European sense, have been running this Michelin-starred Piedmontese restaurant together long enough to be considered an institution. She builds the classics from seasonal ingredients and deep regional tradition; he handles wine, cheese, and the room with the kind of unhurried precision that hospitality schools try to teach and mostly fail to. Soriso is a small village, which means you are making a deliberate trip.
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Three terraces hang over the water at this Michelin-starred restaurant in one of Piedmont's prettiest lake villages, so book ahead or you'll be watching someone else enjoy the view. The kitchen plays creative and precise, pairing Piedmontese meat with fish and seafood in dishes built around contrasting flavours and textures. The sommelier knows the wine list cold and seems to genuinely enjoy talking you through it.
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Rank 7. Pinocchio
Piedmontese
A family-run Piedmontese restaurant in Borgomanero where the dining room has quietly ignored every décor trend of the last several decades and is better for it. The cooking is classic, with the occasional modern adjustment, like their paniscia, the local bean-and-salami risotto, finished with a swoosh of vegetable cream on top. A few fish dishes round out a menu that otherwise stays firmly in the region.
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Rank 8. Osteria San Giulio
Piedmontese
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Rank 9. Cannavacciuolo by the Lake
Contemporary Mediterranean
The terrace here, hovering over Lake Orta on a warm evening, does a lot of the kitchen's work before a plate arrives. This is a fine dining room inside a boutique hotel, holding a Michelin star, where the chef runs a Mediterranean-leaning menu with two tasting routes, one pulling toward the lake, one toward Naples. À la carte is available for anyone not in the mood to be guided. Petit fours close the meal, which feels about right.
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Rank 10. Il Patio
Contemporary Italian
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A vintage petrol pump in the dining room sets the tone for a modern restaurant that's comfortable being a little unexpected. The kitchen works from Piedmontese tradition but doesn't stay there, reworking regional ideas with enough imagination that the results feel like the chef's own. The room is calm and minimalist, the service sharp, and the menu moves easily between meat, fish, and vegetarian without any of those feeling like an afterthought.
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Set inside an old Lombard courtyard in a quiet commuter town, Acquerello is a Michelin-starred creative restaurant where the chef stays firmly behind the scenes and lets the food do the talking. The tasting menu moves through delicate combinations with a faint Eastern lean, playing temperature and texture against each other in ways that feel considered rather than showy. The wine list tilts toward Alpine sparkling, but covers enough ground to keep everyone happy.
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Rank 14. Castagneto
Piedmontese
The terrace here looks out over the green hills above Lake Maggiore, and on a clear day it's hard to concentrate on the menu. This old-school Piedmontese trattoria has been around forever, and the room feels it, in the best way: homey, unhurried, and run with obvious conviction. The kitchen roams the whole Italian peninsula, seafood included, but the local and regional dishes are where it settles. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 15. Condividere
Italian
A small bistrot a few steps from Lake Maggiore's promenade, where the chef builds a seasonal menu around local Piedmontese produce with the kind of care that makes you slow down. The name comes from the opening antipasto, a sequence of small shared bites designed for the table to pick at together. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, and the front of house runs with enough warmth that you notice it.
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Rank 16. Casa Celesia
Contemporary Italian
Tucked under the portico on Oleggio's main piazza, this contemporary Italian restaurant feels like a well-kept local secret that locals keep poorly. The room is warm and quietly elegant, with intimate tables and service that's polished without being stiff. The kitchen leans into Piedmontese seasons, letting produce lead while the chef's seasoning does the quiet, convincing work in the background.
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Rank 17. Italia
Piedmontese
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Rank 19. Rosso di Sera
Modern New American
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Rank 20. La RiMa
Contemporary Italian
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Rank 21. Strattoria
Contemporary Italian
A bonet that arrives as a dark chocolate-draped traditional cake base with a crispy sphere of custard cream on top tells you something about the chef here: Piedmont is the foundation, but the plating has ideas. This contemporary Italian restaurant sits in the foothills near Lake Maggiore with a relaxed, come-as-you-are feel. The menu moves easily between meat and fish, and lunch runs a little lighter for those who have an afternoon to protect.
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Rank 22. Blu
Italian Contemporary Mediterranean
The shaded terrace faces Lake Maggiore and the Rocca d'Angera, which is either a medieval fortress or proof that Arona has always known its angles. This is a lakeside Italian restaurant where the chef calls herself a home-style cook, and the menu backs her up with unfussy, flavour-forward dishes built around local freshwater fish. Carlo runs the front of house and takes the wine pairings seriously, so let him.
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Rank 23. Osteria del Borgo
Contemporary Italian
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Rank 24. Corte Visconti
Italian
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Rank 25. Osteria Cascina dei Fiori
Piedmontese
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Rank 27. Il Sole di Ranco
Modern Italian
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Rank 28. LAQUA by the Lake
Italian
A beach club on Lake Orta pulls the first look, but the dining room at this fine-dining restaurant inside a boutique hotel is what keeps people talking. The kitchen runs under Antonino Cannavacciuolo's direction, and the menu moves between à la carte and tasting options, with pasta and secondi that lean into Campanian instincts filtered through northern Italian restraint. The crowd arrived for a weekend and quietly rebooked.
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Rank 29. Giardinetto
Modern Mediterranean
The dining room sits right on the edge of Lake Orta, with views that stretch out to the Island of San Giulio, which is the kind of backdrop that makes it hard to focus on the menu. This is a hotel restaurant with Mediterranean cooking that occasionally takes a detour into more inventive territory. The roof terrace bar upstairs handles aperitifs and after-dinner drinks, and the wine cellar is well stocked for the serious-minded.
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Rank 30. Christian & Manuel
Modern Italian
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Warm lighting and large windows onto a Gallarate pedestrian street set the mood at this contemporary osteria, where the kitchen leans meat-forward but keeps fish and vegetarian options in honest rotation. The cooking has a personal stamp without losing track of how flavors are supposed to balance. Lunch runs lighter and easier on the wallet, which is when the regulars tend to fill the room before the evening crowd arrives.
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Rank 32. Battipalo
Modern Italian
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Rank 35. Alla Corte Lombarda
Modern Italian
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Rank 36. DEG Ristorante
Contemporary Italian
A self-taught chef who leaves the kitchen to talk you through his food is either very confident or very charming, and this intimate contemporary restaurant in a quiet corner of Busto Arsizio suggests both. Pastel interiors, no parking drama, and a menu built on fermentation and measured acidity, Italian at its core with quiet nods toward Asia. Tasting menus or à la carte, your call.
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Rank 37. I 5 Campanili
Contemporary Mediterranean
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Rank 38. Osteria dell'Oca Bianca
Piedmontese
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Rank 39. Il Faggio
Modern Mediterranean
The dining room sits inside a building that once housed a Workers' Mutual Aid Society, and it still carries that civic dignity, with tall windows, classic furnishings, and an atmosphere that feels pleasantly unstuck from the present. The cooking runs modern and Mediterranean, moving between seafood and meat with quiet confidence. The wine list leans Piedmontese but roams freely through Italy, France, and beyond, which is a good problem to have.
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Rank 40. Anto e Robi
Mediterranean
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Rank 41. Osteria Mercato
Contemporary Italian
A terrace just off the tourist drag in Stresa's historic center sets the tone for this contemporary Italian restaurant: relaxed but considered, and clearly not here to sell you a postcard. The kitchen moves between land and sea with some ease, pulling from local producers and letting the ingredients do the talking. Ravioli stuffed with farmyard meats sits comfortably beside octopus in saffron broth, and neither dish feels out of place.
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A family spent a lifetime collecting the fabrics and furnishings that fill this restaurant, and it shows: the room feels curated rather than decorated, all soft lighting and genuine warmth in a restored hamlet tucked into the Valle Cervo. The cooking is rooted in Piedmontese ingredients with a careful modern hand. Beef Wellington turns up as a statement of precision in a place that otherwise feels like someone's very well-traveled home.
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Rank 44. Lo Stornello
Modern Mediterranean
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Rank 45. LeBolle
Modern Italian
Five private dining pods tucked into the greenery give the restaurant its name, though the garden terrace and contemporary indoor room at this hotel restaurant are just as good a reason to show up. The kitchen draws on the lake, the surrounding Alps, Campania, and Puglia in equal measure, with house-made breads quietly making the regional argument. Tasting menus and à la carte both available.
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A family trattoria in Fagnano Olona where the fourth generation now runs the room, which means the cooking has been refined over a very long time without anyone forgetting what the food is supposed to taste like. The menu leans seasonal and local, with the daily specials worth a look. The wine list gets serious attention from the owner, and the service is informal enough that you won't feel watched.
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Rank 47. Ma.Ri.Na.
Seafood Italian
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Rank 48. Verbano
Mediterranean Italian
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Rank 49. Soul Restaurant
Contemporary Italian
A couple who logged serious time cooking abroad before coming home to Legnano runs this intimate contemporary Italian restaurant, where the menu arrives as one of three tasting options or à la carte if you'd rather steer yourself. The cooking is imaginative without showing off about it, and the wine list has clearly been curated by someone who paid attention. The welcome is the kind that makes you feel the room was expecting you.
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Rank 50. Koinè
Contemporary Italian
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Rank 53. La Tavola
Italian
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Rank 54. Milano
Modern Italian
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Rank 55. Caffè delle Rose Bistrot
Mediterranean
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Rank 56. Al Vecchio Convento
Tuscan
Cantucci and ricciarelli stacked near the entrance for sale set the tone before you've seen a menu. This is a Tuscan restaurant in a historic building on the edge of the city, the kind of place where meat is the point and fresh pasta is made the old way. The dining room runs classic and composed, service keeps pace, and the kitchen doesn't wander far from regional tradition. Private parking out front, which somehow feels like part of the personality.
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Rank 57. D'O
Contemporary Italian
A two-Michelin-star restaurant on a quiet piazza where an elm tree and a seventeenth-century church do most of the decorating. Inside, chef Davide Oldani runs a tasting-menu operation built on what you might call cheerful precision: Italian in instinct, technically immaculate, and plated with a slightly pop sensibility that keeps the whole thing from taking itself too seriously. The sommelier's pairings lean playful, which fits the room perfectly.
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Rank 58. Antica Osteria del Ponte
Contemporary Italian
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A portico farmhouse in the Vigevano countryside that looks more like a private villa than a restaurant, hung with antique furniture and paintings by local artists. The chef and his wife have been running this Michelin-starred kitchen together for ages, he in back cooking classical Lombard cuisine, she keeping the dining room warm. Duck and goose anchor the menu, which is exactly right for this corner of the Po plain.
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Rank 61. Locanda del Villoresi
Mediterranean
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The elm tree in the piazza outside gave this place its name, which feels right for a restaurant this quietly rooted in a spot. Davide Oldani's Michelin-starred project seats just fourteen across three tables, with the kitchen fully in view, and runs a single tasting menu built around seasonal ingredients and the interplay of texture and temperature. Lunch offers a shorter option at a gentler price point.
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Rank 63. Crotto Valtellina
Valtellina Italian
A crotto is a cave-carved dining room built into rock, and this one in Malnate has been serving the mountain cooking of Valtellina for generations. Wooden tables, period furniture, and a summer veranda that looks out over a sandstone wall and garden give it a genuinely unhurried feel. The menu runs from buckwheat pizzoccheri to more unexpected pairings, the kind of traditional restaurant where the kitchen knows exactly when to stay put and when to wander.
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Rank 64. Osteria degli Angeli
Mediterranean
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Rank 65. Impronta
Sicilian Mediterranean
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Rank 67. La Fugascina Ristorante
Contemporary Italian
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The kitchen is open, so you can watch Alfio Nicolosi work while his team quietly asks, before you've even sat down, whether anything is off the table. That question matters because there's a single surprise tasting menu and no other path through the meal. A Michelin-starred creative restaurant in Saronno, it pulls from Italian tradition but leans hard into Asian and South American ideas, landing somewhere personal and hard to place, which is rather the point.
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Rank 70. Trattoria contemporanea
Contemporary Italian
A converted cotton mill in Lomazzo sets the scene for this Michelin-starred contemporary Italian restaurant, where the kitchen runs a fully vegetarian tasting menu alongside the main one. The young team works with modern technique on combinations that wander freely between Italian instinct and broader influences. Lunch pulls things back a register, but the ambition visible at dinner stays consistent throughout.
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Rank 71. Trattoria Guallina
Italian
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Rank 72. Il Portico
Contemporary Italian
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Rank 73. Mezzolitro Vini e Cucina
Abruzzo Italian
A family-run trattoria tucked into the quiet pedestrian lanes of Rho's old town, cooking from Abruzzo with the kind of seriousness that makes you forget you're in a suburb of Milan. The menu reads like a letter home: handmade chitarra pasta in a deep, slow sauce scattered with tiny meatballs and sharp pecorino. The Michelin Guide picked it up for a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. Bring an appetite and nowhere to be after.
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Rank 74. Trattoria La Barca
Apulian Italian
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Rank 75. Antica Trattoria del Gallo
Lombardian Italian
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A luminous dining room of warm wood and wide windows onto a manicured garden sets the mood at this contemporary restaurant in San Vito, where a young chef channels years in Italian and French kitchens into something quietly personal. The menu reads as a love letter to Italian identity filtered through serious technique, and the front-of-house paces the tasting menu with the calm confidence of someone who has done this before.
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Rank 77. Trattoria di Coronate
Italian
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Rank 78. Brindo
Lombardian Italian
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Rank 79. Da Orlando
Italian
A trattoria that has been feeding Cusago locals for decades, with the village's medieval castle visible just outside. The menu splits evenly between fish and meat, and the kitchen takes both seriously enough that neither feels like an afterthought. Two formal dining rooms suit a slow dinner, while the courtyard fills up in summer. Cusago is a short hop from Milan, which is reason enough to point the car west.
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Rank 80. Accademia Ristorante
Piedmontese
Frescoed ceilings from the late 1700s set the scene for a Piedmontese country restaurant that climbs, quite literally, an imposing staircase to reach its dining room inside a former aristocratic palace. The kitchen leans into regional classics, with ravioli del plin as the thread that runs through everything, plus a few seafood detours. The owner steers the wine list toward Monferrato bottles and Champagne with the enthusiasm of someone who has clearly done his homework.
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Rank 81. Montalbano by Mirko Rainer
Contemporary Italian
A hilltop trattoria on the Montalbano slope with a veranda and summer terrace that do most of the convincing before the food arrives. The contemporary Italian kitchen leans into seafood crudo and grilled dishes off a Big Green Egg, with a tasting menu that swings heavily toward meat. Order Champagne and there's a decent chance the owner appears with a saber, which is either thrilling or deeply alarming depending on where you're sitting.
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Rank 82. Darmagi
Piedmontese
The name is dialect for "what a shame," which the restaurant leans into as a gentle dare to stop driving past. It's a secluded little villa outside Mercenasco, the dining room anchored by a fireplace, serving the kind of traditional Piedmontese cooking that makes the Canavese countryside worth the detour. In winter, fritto misto and bagna caoda fill the tables; in warmer months, a terrace pulls the meal outdoors into the green.
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Rank 83. La Refezione
Italian
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Rank 84. Osteria Enoteca Cuntitt
Modern Italian
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Rank 86. Da Carla
Lombardian Italian
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Rank 87. Antica Osteria Magenes
Modern Italian
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An old country osteria tucked into the Ticino hills, where the menu follows the season and the wine list leans hard into Italian and regional bottles. The kitchen turns out traditional recipes with the kind of care that makes simple food feel deliberate, pike done à la meunière, desserts finished with yuzu limoncello and raspberry flakes. In summer, the place has the pull of somewhere you'd rather not leave.
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Rank 89. Abba
Modern New American
A former brush factory in the Certosa District, now eight widely spaced tables, an open kitchen, and enough Nordic minimalism to make you sit up straight. Abba holds a Michelin star for cooking that leans modern and precise, the kind where tomato water risotto arrives looking deceptively simple and tastes nothing of the sort. The room is quiet enough that you can hear the chef think.
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Rank 90. InGalera
Italian
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Rank 91. Osteria Bar Sport
Piedmontese
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Rank 92. Il Luogo Aimo e Nadia
Modern Italian
A plate of hard wheat spaghetti with spring onion, chilli, and Ligurian basil has been on this menu since the founder was in the kitchen, which tells you something about the confidence here. It's a Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant that has been around forever, yet the two tasting menus still feel alive, drawing on both Lombard and Apulian roots. The wine list, browsed on tablets, turns up bottles that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere.
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Rank 93. Osteria del Ponte
Milanese Italian
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Rank 94. Gardenia
Piedmontese
A nineteenth-century building with a balcony running the inner courtyard sets the tone for this Piedmontese restaurant in the small town of Caluso. The menu is a fairly faithful portrait of the region: lots of meat, some fish, vegetables that sometimes come from the kitchen garden out back. It feels like someone's grandmother's house if grandmother had a strong opinion about local sourcing and a cellar worth investigating.
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Rank 95. La Brughiera
Traditional Italian
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Pickled whitefish with roe and bitter local greens is a fair signal of what the kitchen is doing here. Materia is a Michelin-starred creative restaurant in Cernobbio where Italian instincts meet Asian influences and a genuine fondness for sour, bitter, and hard-to-place flavors. Vegetables and aromatic herbs do a lot of the heavy lifting, and the desserts follow the same logic rather than softening into sweetness. A lighter lunch menu exists for the less committed.
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Enrico Bartolini holds three Michelin stars and runs this fine dining room on the third floor of Milan's Museum of Cultures, which gives dinner a certain gallery-adjacent seriousness before you've even sat down. The cooking is creative without being punishing about it: flavors run deep and layered, but following them is optional. Tasting menus and à la carte both available, and an off-menu cheese course with unusual pairings is worth asking about.
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Rank 98. Faletta 1881
Piedmontese
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Rank 99. Le Miniere
Piedmontese
On the main square of a tiny Val Chiusella village, ringed by birch trees and cyclamen, this family-run hotel-restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand for its deeply traditional Piedmontese cooking. Tripe alla campagnola with polenta taragna is the kind of dish that reminds you what the region actually eats when nobody's performing. The surrounding village takes about ten minutes to explore, which is just enough time to justify dessert.
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Rank 100. Kitchen
Contemporary Italian
A biodynamic kitchen garden sits right at the entrance, and whatever grows there ends up on the plate, which tells you a lot about how this Michelin-starred fine dining room operates. Set in a private park outside Como, Kitchen runs two tasting menus, one of them built almost entirely around vegetables and herbs the team grew themselves. The à la carte is there if you'd rather not commit, and the wine list gives you plenty of reasons to linger.