The Best Italian Food in Italy

Photographs of old locomotives and rows of copper pots line the walls of this long-running osteria in Pordenone's historic center. The kitchen leans hard into Friulian tradition, turning out cured meats, local cheeses, and braised beef cheek with polenta, the kind of food that arrives in portions sized for people who actually work. The room runs warm and convivial, the way an old neighborhood place does when it has nothing to prove.

A contemporary trattoria a short drive outside Crema, with a minimalist room lifted by pops of colour. The kitchen leans on Italian tradition, leaning further into modern technique as the week winds toward the weekend. The wine list splits evenly between Italian and French labels, with a serious run of champagnes for a room this unfussy. Weekday lunches are the quiet bargain the locals already know about.

The restaurant sits inside a wine estate, so the list leans hard on Barbaresco and Barolo, with Champagne as the only outside voice. La Gallina is a contemporary fine dining room with a rustic-elegant feel, the menu circling Piedmont and dipping into Liguria and the chef's native Campania. A dessert that arrives disguised as a cappuccino and focaccia breakfast suggests the kitchen has a sense of humor about where it draws its references.

The Josper oven and a dry-ageing unit on site tells you where this contemporary Italian restaurant's priorities lie. Grilled meats, including prized Iberian cuts, anchor the evening menu, while fish dishes keep things balanced. Lunch pulls back to something more casual and accessible without abandoning the kitchen's modern technique. The room itself has an architectural edge that matches the food, a short walk from the center of Foggia.

Tucked into the Villa Bardini museum complex above the city, this creative fine-dining restaurant earns its uphill walk with a summer terrace where you eat among herbs and greenery with Santa Croce floating in the distance. The chef works through Italian culinary tradition with genuine curiosity, leaning on sustainable sourcing for meat, bread, and pasta. Several menus are on offer, including a vegetarian option, which feels less like an afterthought here than most places.

The dining room sits over the excavated remains of a Roman villa, which makes the bread service feel appropriately humble by comparison. This is a sit-down restaurant in central Assisi, split between straightforward Umbrian cooking and more considered modern plates. The wine cellar is serious enough to be a destination on its own, and the setting, ancient stone and all, does most of the interior decorating.

Castelfranco Emilia is tortellini country, and this modern Emilian restaurant leans into that with zero embarrassment. The chef grew up here, and the menu reads like a love letter to the region, fresh pasta folded by hand, bollito misto served with serious sauces. The dining room is contemporary without being cold, and the service runs warm enough that you don't notice how long you've been sitting there.

An old mill on the edge of Pietrasanta, with wood beams overhead and a terrace that earns its keep in summer, houses this modern Italian restaurant where seafood is the clear obsession. The chef works both sides of the pass, often taking orders tableside, and the raw seafood preparations are where the kitchen shows off, small bites that lean creative without tipping into gimmick. Meat dishes round out the menu for anyone who needs convincing.

An old mill just outside Modena doing its best impression of Puglia, and pulling it off. This trattoria-style restaurant leans hard on the heel of Italy: stuffed peppers, fava purée with chicory, eggplant parmigiana, and meats cooked over live embers. Sitting in egg-pasta country and ignoring most of it takes some nerve. Desserts arrive in a basket, a pile of small sweets with dried fruit and chocolate, which is a fine way to end anything.

A deconstructed cannolo is the closing argument at this old-port Sicilian restaurant, where the kitchen runs from breakfast pastries through to whatever the boats brought in that day. The cooking is traditional island fare, the kind built around swordfish, bottarga, and fresh catch rather than culinary ambition. Warm, unhurried, and run as a family operation, it's the sort of place you end up staying far longer than planned.

A fire crackling at the back of the room is your first hint: charcoal-grilled meat is the main event at this old-school Emilian trattoria, which has been feeding the neighborhood across from the Abbey of Nonantola for generations. Fresh pasta, outstanding charcuterie, and a dessert trolley that comes to you round out the menu. The rooms are homely but cared for, with fresh flowers on every table, and the wine list runs deep.

The rooftop of a former Fiat factory now hosts a botanical garden, and the restaurant one floor below it has made peace with that act to follow. This is a creative tasting-menu spot inside the Lingotto shopping center, with four menus ranging from Piedmontese classics to a vegetarian garden tour to a blind "trust the kitchen" option. Everything is also available à la carte, which is a rare and civilized gesture.

The building itself spans Via Stalingrado like a bridge, which sets the tone before you've ordered anything. By day it runs as a casual bistro with straightforward plates; by evening the room shifts into creative modern dining, all warm wood and a mostly female front-of-house team who seem to actually enjoy being there. The kitchen draws from Emilian tradition and then quietly departs from it, mixing regional references with a chef's own restless curiosity.

Tucked into a small medieval hilltop village, this agriturismo restaurant runs on produce grown right on the property, with a charcoal grill doing serious work on Tuscan ribeye and a spit-roasted pigeon and quail dish that earns its place on any table. The setting is rustic farmhouse with the views to make you forget about the drive. In summer, the outdoor tables under the lime trees fill fast, so booking ahead is the move.

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.

A seafood trattoria where the menu is mostly a suggestion and the real action is whatever came off the truck that morning. The cooking pulls from Sardinia and broader Italian tradition, clean and unadorned. Regulars let the owner steer, which is the correct move. The roasted turbot with porcini and potatoes is about as fussy as it gets, and that tells you everything about the kitchen's general philosophy.

A compact modern Sardinian restaurant steps from Alghero's seafront, where the menu shifts between tasting routes named for roots, revolution, coast, and courtyard. Each path traces a different logic of the island, vegetables one way, local fish another, tradition a third. All wines pour by the glass, and the sommelier seems to genuinely enjoy being asked. The room is small enough that the kitchen's intentions land at the table without getting lost.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Langhe hills so completely that lunch feels like eating inside a landscape painting. This is a small Piedmontese restaurant where the chef, originally from Puglia, landed in the Langhe by way of stints in England and never quite left. The cooking stays rooted in local tradition without being a museum piece. In good weather, the outdoor terrace is the obvious place to be.

Tables on the terrace look straight down to the sea, with Positano lit up below like someone arranged it for effect. This is the gourmet restaurant inside Le Agavi Hotel, where the kitchen runs Campanian flavors through a quietly modern sensibility. The wine list wanders well beyond Italy, with a particular soft spot for Champagne rosés, and the sommelier guides pairings with the kind of ease that makes you feel like you chose well yourself.

The terrace table with an unobstructed view of Lake Como sets the terms for everything that follows at this fine dining restaurant inside Villa d'Este. The kitchen works in contemporary Italian with a cosmopolitan lean, the kind of menu that keeps old-world instincts but isn't afraid of a detour. Dress as though someone might photograph you, because at Villa d'Este they very well might.

The Liberty-style dining room inside Parkhotel Laurin turns lunch into a minor occasion, and the garden tables under old trees make summer in Bolzano feel earned. The cooking is rooted in Italian tradition with detours into modern technique, so you'll find local South Tyrolean specialities alongside dishes that borrow ideas from further afield. Jacket optional, but the room will make you wish you'd tried a little harder.

Le Beccherie is the restaurant credited with inventing tiramisù, which gives it a certain authority in Treviso you'd be foolish to ignore. It's a contemporary dining room now, with canal-view tables doing most of the heavy lifting on atmosphere. The kitchen blends regional tradition with modern technique, and a tasting menu called "Beccherie 1962" offers the old repertoire polished up just enough to feel respectful rather than nostalgic.

Olive wood does the heavy lifting here, sending smoke through the stone walls of a former oil cellar that dates back to the late 1500s. It's a contemporary grill restaurant just a short walk from the sea in Sestri Levante, with its own kitchen garden out front and a dining room that leans pleasantly rustic and romantic. No fish on the menu, which makes a statement in Liguria, the kitchen favoring self-grown vegetables and meat cooked over the coals.

Mirrors and silverware set the tone at this classic Genoese seafood restaurant, where the menu leans heavily on raw fish and whatever came off the boat. The mupa, a deep-water Mediterranean species most menus have never heard of, shows up here alongside prawns in season and handmade pasta with sauces that suggest someone's grandmother is involved. The table near the arte povera dresser at the back is the one to ask for.

Sheaves of wheat hang from the ceiling and old farming tools line the walls, so the name, which means granary in the local dialect, earns its keep. This is a sit-down restaurant in the center of Saint-Vincent where the kitchen leans into Aosta Valley tradition while quietly modernizing it, home-baked bread included. An open fireplace does the atmospheric heavy lifting, and the regional wine list is long enough to slow any decision-making considerably.

An old stone farmhouse tucked into a tiny hamlet in the Cembra valley, Le Tre Colombe runs a single monthly tasting menu in softly lit dining rooms that feel genuinely like someone's home. The chef leans into the region's seasonal pantry and gives it a modern turn, so the cooking feels rooted and restless at once. Shorter menu options are available for those who want dinner without a commitment.

The kitchen garden and a farm in Grosseto supply much of what lands on the plate at this contemporary Italian restaurant in Erbusco, which means the menu shifts around what the estate is growing and raising rather than the other way around. Lunch runs à la carte; evenings add a tasting menu in a separate section of the room. The wine list leans into Franciacorta but travels wider when it needs to.

The square outside was once a linen market, and the room itself has been a bank and a bookshop before settling into its current life as a casual Italian bistro. It shares a building with its fancier sibling, the fine dining Lino, but this place is the approachable one: honest, unfussy cooking presented with enough care that you notice. The crowd tends toward locals who know the neighbourhood and aren't performing a special occasion.

Pumpkin tortelli, served with butter or a tomato-and-sausage sauce, is the dish this small Mantuan trattoria is known for, and portions here run generous in the old local tradition. The chef runs the kitchen and still comes out to greet you, which keeps the room feeling personal rather than performative. The menu moves between honest regional cooking and quietly creative plates, without making a fuss about the difference.

The dining room occupies the old stables of a restored Renaissance palazzo, which sets a mood before anyone has looked at the menu. This is a creative restaurant where the chef pulls between his Sicilian roots and the Adriatic larder of the Marche, running both tasting menus and à la carte. The wine cellar is worth asking about, and they'll take you down for a look if you're curious.

Three tables on the second floor of a building in Arco's old centre, where a couple has turned their travels into a supper club that seats a handful of people per night. Dinner runs as a tasting menu, either meat or fish, and the cooking pulls from the Trentino, the rest of Italy, and wherever else caught their interest on the road. Intimate enough that it genuinely feels like someone's home, which is either charming or slightly nerve-wracking depending on your personality.

Nested in the Val di Non among apple orchards and castle silhouettes, this family-run locanda in a handsome old village building has been cooking regional Trentino food for what feels like forever. The menu follows the seasons closely, white asparagus and venison turning up when they should, with the occasional nod to broader Italian cooking. The pistachio ice cream has become something of a local legend, apparently.

A wisteria-draped courtyard in summer, crackling fireplaces in winter, and a medieval castle village as the backdrop. This is a country inn where the cooking leans into Piacenza tradition with just enough modern thinking to keep it from feeling like a museum. Local wines anchor the list, the room runs on warmth, and the kitchen sends out dishes that taste like they belong exactly where they are.

Perched in the oldest corner of a hilltop village in Lambrusco country, this is the kind of inn-restaurant where the hand-rolled tagliatelle with ragù feels less like a menu choice and more like a foregone conclusion. The kitchen splits its attention between deep Emilian tradition and a lighter seafood side, and in warm weather a small terrace looks out over the main street, which moves at a pace that makes you order another carafe.

The carrello dei bolliti, a trolley of boiled meats wheeled to your table, sets the register immediately: this is old-school Piedmontese dining in a warren of small wood-ceilinged rooms hung with vintage photos. Handmade pasta and a rabbit stew piled with Carmagnola peppers anchor the menu. In summer the garden fills up, all green plants and good intentions. Somewhere your grandmother would nod approvingly, assuming she was from Cavour.

A beach club restaurant on the Sicilian coast where the loungers and umbrellas are part of the deal, and in summer the windows fold back so the whole room becomes a terrace. The kitchen follows the lead of multi-starred chef Perbellini, reworking Sicilian flavors, seafood and otherwise, with a modern hand. The vegetarian dishes get the same serious attention as everything else, which is not always a given at the seaside.

A country restaurant in the Piacenza hills where the grill does most of the talking, filling the outdoor dining terrace with smoke and the smell of something good. The menu moves between land, sea, and garden, with a tasting menu built around live fire or à la carte if you'd rather wander. A couple of suites and a wellness center mean you can stay, which, given the Zen garden and the view, seems like the obvious move.

The fish bao that opens the menu, a soft steamed bun served alongside empanadas filled with smoked cheese and shrimp, signals that this contemporary Italian restaurant in a small Bergamo-area town is doing something more roaming than the address suggests. Pastas and risottos anchor the middle, and Bergamo lamb brings it home before gelato closes things out. The handcrafted furniture is its own conversation starter, but the kitchen tends to win.

A family trattoria in Cogne with a name that translates, in local dialect, as "the night snack," which tells you something about the spirit of the place. The cooking is rooted in Aosta Valley tradition: hearty soups, tripe with borlotti beans, polenta, the kind of food that makes sense after a day in the mountains. A historic taverna sits downstairs, a dining room above, and a handful of guestrooms for those who'd rather not leave.

The ground floor of the old Banco di Napoli building, now home to the Gallerie d'Italia museum, makes for an unlikely but convincing lunch spot. This cafe-bistro and pasticceria runs from quick bar bites through to a full menu that spans international dishes and Campanian classics, the kind of place where you can eat as lightly or as seriously as the afternoon allows. The candele pasta with Neapolitan ragu and the babà tend to be the arguments for staying.

A restored Tuscan hamlet perched between Montepulciano and Montefollonico, where the chef decides the menu each morning based on whatever the estate has produced. Dinner is al fresco in warm weather, and a glass of the sunset comes free. In cooler months the dining room looks straight into an open kitchen. The road to get there is genuinely pastoral, which is the point. Book ahead if you're not sleeping here, and don't expect a printed menu to study on the way.

The kitchen has a window onto the pass, so you can watch the brigade work while the sommelier talks you through the pairings. This is a contemporary seafood restaurant grown out of a partnership with the fishmonger next door, and the menu stays loyal to that origin: fish, shellfish, and vegetables, with quiet nods toward Japan in the marinades and fresh pasta. The room is elegant without being stiff.

A cozy trattoria in the Nomentano quarter, a student neighborhood northeast of the center where no tour bus has ever made a wrong turn. The kitchen works its way through regional Italian traditions and then quietly does something odd and right: a classic Mantuan pumpkin tortello becomes roasted squash with curry and amaretti. The room is small, vintage in feel, and the cooking lands somewhere between a Sunday lunch and a genuinely curious mind.

The focaccia di Recco on the menu here isn't a nod to local tradition; it's the reason there is a local tradition. This old-school Ligurian restaurant in Recco has been in the same family for generations, and part of the building still runs as a focacceria so nobody has to wait for the good part. The main dining room goes further, with fish-forward cooking that leans traditional but takes the occasional modern turn.

A Roman chef running a Piedmontese kitchen is either a provocation or a proposition, and here it reads as the latter. This contemporary Italian restaurant near the city center offers a surprise tasting menu or a full à la carte, with dishes that move between local tradition and something more personal: vivid, colorful plates built around seasonal produce and whatever the market is doing with meat and fish that week.

A family-run trattoria in the Alpine gateway town of Crodo, where the chef works the kitchen and his wife runs the room with the easy attentiveness of people who genuinely like feeding guests. The cooking leans on mountain tradition, beef and game and root vegetables, then nudges each dish somewhere slightly unexpected. The Walser beef filet has become a house signature for a reason, and the venison ossobuco with blueberry compote makes a strong argument for ordering the second menu page first.