The Best Italian Food in Italy

Checked cotton tablecloths and bottles lined up on the shelves set the tone at this old-school osteria in Borgo San Giuliano, the painted fishermen's quarter that Fellini grew up loving. The kitchen stays deep in Romagna tradition: house-cured meats, fresh pasta, and Mora Romagnola pork cooked several ways. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks with the crowd of locals who seem entirely unsurprised to be eating this well.

The wood-fired oven and barbecue grill share the floor like co-stars at this rustic, exposed-brick osteria in a small Abruzzo wine village, and the ember-to-ember cooking chain that connects them shapes much of the menu. The young team works regional traditions without being enslaved by them, landing somewhere between grandmother's kitchen and genuine curiosity. The Michelin Guide has handed them a Bib Gourmand, which for a place this new is a notable way to start.

You reach the dining room by crossing through the courtyard of an old palazzo, which sets the tone: this is a traditional Piedmontese osteria that takes its region seriously. A climate-controlled case of Langa and Roero reds anchors the main room, and the menu reads like a guided tour of the province. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and booking ahead is wise even at lunch.

A brick-vaulted ceiling gives this cozy Lombardian osteria its feel, somewhere between a farmhouse and a proper dining room. The menu runs on seasonal ingredients and deep regional habit, from marubini in broth to pumpkin tortelli, with the kitchen leaning generous rather than fussy. The wine list skews sparkling, which in this part of the Po Valley is a statement of local pride. The Michelin Guide has awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

A farmhouse osteria outside town where the beer list gets as much attention as the pasta. The kitchen covers traditional Emilian cooking with a few local turns, and the Michelin Guide has flagged it with a Bib Gourmand for the value. The owner's beer selection runs from regional craft labels to bottles from well past the Italian border, and the Birramisù, a tiramisu built around beer, commits to the bit. Book ahead.

A Bib Gourmand osteria in Bra's old town, a short walk from a square where you can actually park. The kitchen leans into Piedmontese classics, vitello tonnato, tajarin, and local sausage, but the cooking reads as carefully considered rather than dusty. Portions are generous and the plates are pretty. A couple runs the room with genuine warmth, and the staff manages to be both efficient and relaxed, which in a small Italian dining room is harder than it looks.

Barrel-vaulted ceilings and a terrace shaded enough to actually linger through a long lunch set the scene at this old-school Tuscan trattoria in central Chiusi. The kitchen digs into regional recipes that predate most cookbooks, turning them out with the kind of generous flavour that makes you suspect shortcuts were simply never invented here. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

The wisteria-covered terrace sits just off Marostica's famous chessboard square, and the dining room inside feels like it has barely changed in decades. This old-school trattoria holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and runs on a tight menu of Venetian classics: bigoli pasta, salt cod the Vicenza way, tripe soup. Tables are few and regulars are loyal, so booking ahead is less a suggestion than a fact of life.

Giancarlo Perbellini, the chef behind one of Verona's grand tasting-menu temples, runs this osteria as a kind of antidote to his own reputation. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the point is exactly that: seasonal Italian classics, a good run of wines by the glass, and prices that don't require a second mortgage. A terrace tucked down a side street off Via Mazzini makes it easy to linger longer than planned.

The wooden ceiling came from an old country haybarn, which tells you something about the room before the food arrives. This is a classic Emilian trattoria, the kind where the charcuterie board alone could end the meal, anchored by culatello di Zibello and fried gnocco. Fresh egg pasta follows, then meat, then a dessert list long enough to cause genuine indecision. The wine list is taken seriously. Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A gasthaus tucked into the pedestrianized center of San Michele, where the wine list is all Alto Adige, the cooking leans on regional recipes, and gorgonzola sauce somehow ends up on arancini without anyone blinking. Herbert Hintner is considered the defining name in this corner of Italian cuisine, and the room reflects that confidence: simple, contemporary, and unfussy. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

Sandrigo is the town that gave the world the bacalà alla vicentina festival, so it makes sense that a restaurant here has built its entire identity around cod. Palmerino serves the fish plain, salted, and dried, with the house centerpiece being that same local classic, made with stoccafisso despite what the name implies. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, the menu adds other seafood and a few meat dishes for the unconvinced.

A trattoria in a tight Ligurian seaside village that started life as a fishing-net warehouse, and hasn't tried very hard to forget it. The room is simple and old-school, with tables outside on a characteristically narrow street. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand for the kind of generous, unfussy seafood cooking that's been arriving from the kitchen for generations: fish soup a permanent fixture, fish tartare turning heads lately.

A glass-walled kitchen lets you watch the chef work while you eat, which either relaxes or unnerves you depending on your table. This small, quietly modern restaurant in Voghera's historic centre earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand with Lombardian cooking that leans local but bends the rules just enough to keep things interesting. The co-owner steers wine choices toward the Oltrepò Pavese, and half-portions are on offer for anyone exercising restraint.

An agriturismo tucked into the rolling hills of Collio, where the wine list features only bottles from the estate and the kitchen runs on the same logic: hyper-local, seasonal, and occasionally surprising. The chef works cured meats and aged cheeses into the menu alongside dishes that show a more personal hand. Six tables keep things intimate, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand means bookings fill fast. Call ahead.

A suckling pig turns on a spit inside a room built around a fireplace, and that image is basically the whole argument for this Sardinian restaurant in the rural interior near Oliena. The terrace looks out over vineyards and olive groves, the dining rooms are hung with local handicrafts, and the menu stays firmly inland, running through cured meats, pane frattau, kid with fennel, and house-made ice creams. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The address has changed since the name was set, which tells you most of what you need to know about this trattoria's relationship with pretension. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and has been feeding the historic Rambaldo quarter for decades, turning out arrosticini and slow-braised meats rooted in Abruzzese tradition. The cellars below hold medieval and Roman ruins, which makes the house nougat feel like a reasonable way to end the evening.

A stone and brick farmhouse surrounded by woodland, where the fogolar fireplace crackles in the corner and the kitchen sends charcoal smoke through the dining room all evening. This is old-school country cooking, the kind of trattoria where the wine list leans heavily on the family's own labels and the risottos are as carefully made as anything grilled over embers. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and guest rooms are available if the cellar gets the better of you.

Tortelli stuffed with Amarone-braised meat is a reasonable argument for making the drive into the Valpolicella hills. This is a cozy trattoria with a fireplace, a veranda, and a terrace for warmer evenings, the kind of room that makes it easy to stay for an extra glass. The wine list leans deep into Verona, with a generous pour-by-the-glass selection. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, which tells you the cooking punches above the price.

A few kilometres outside Parma, this trattoria sits in the kind of quiet countryside that makes you wonder why you ever eat in cities. The cooking is old-school Emilian, the sort where tortelli alle erbette arrive because someone made the ricotta locally and the pasta that morning. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. The owner circulates the room and genuinely knows what to order, so let him.

The lampredotto on the menu tells you exactly where you are: a no-frills Florentine trattoria sitting next to its fancier sibling, Cibrèo, without any apparent envy. The kitchen sticks to old-school Tuscan staples, the room fills fast with people who know not to look at the prices twice, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests the value is not accidental. Go for the stewed offal or the vegetable soup, and stay for the caramel panna cotta.

A family-run trattoria in a Tuscan mountain village where mushrooms turn up in half the dishes because mushrooms are the point. The rustic dining rooms are unfussy, the pasta is homemade, and the menu runs from tripe to a long bench of meats without ever trying to be anything other than what it is. The Michelin Guide's Bib Gourmand crowd tends to find places like this before you do, but here you are.

A roadside trattoria in a small Tuscan village, the kind of place where the walls stay plain because the kitchen has nothing left to prove. The menu runs through regional classics, from pappa al pomodoro to tripe and lampredotto meatballs, and the wine list is longer than it looks once the host starts talking. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

A family trattoria tucked into the Val Serina, where polenta comes several ways and the kitchen holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The menu is short on purpose, built around Bergamasco staples: casoncelli with butter and pancetta, bresaola from Orobica cattle, and, when the season allows, the local black truffle. In fine weather the terrace opens onto hills that do most of the decorating. The women run the floor; the man of the house cooks.

Bolognina sits just past the point where most tourists turn back, which suits this no-fuss trattoria in Bologna's old working-class quarter just fine. The kitchen runs on fresh pasta and regional recipes done without flourish, the tortellini in broth being the kind of thing you think about on the train home. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Book ahead, including at lunch, or you'll be thinking about it even longer.

A seafood trattoria in the flatlands outside Ferrara that has been a local fixture long enough to count as furniture. The room has been freshened up without losing its unfussy bones, and the kitchen stays loyal to the classics, raw scampi lightly kissed with lemon zest, turbot under a potato crust. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks: this is the kind of cooking where the fish does the talking.

A short climb from Piazza De Ferrari leads to this old-school Ligurian trattoria where the kitchen treats trofie al pesto alla genovese and brandacujun as articles of faith. Book ahead, because the dining room fills with people who know better than to show up without a reservation. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and the menu reads like a regional argument for never straying far from tradition.

Carrù is the town that puts a fattened ox on a pedestal every winter, and this old-school trattoria leans into that identity hard. Piedmontese classics fill the menu: bagna cauda, boiled meats, ravioli, and a hazelnut cake that closes things quietly but well. Ask about the cellar, where a round table for ten in the "Crota dl'amicissia" turns dinner into an event. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a few guest rooms sit nearby if the bonet tips you over the edge.

A family trattoria tucked into the Modenese Apennines, where the parents cook and their daughter works the room. Mom handles the hand-rolled pasta and desserts, dad tends the meats, and the whole operation holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Truffle scent drifts through in season. The drive up from Modena on the SP3 takes an hour of switchbacks through green valleys, which regulars treat as part of the meal rather than a detour.

A vaulted ceiling, an open kitchen, and a terrace beside the church of San Carlo Borromeo: the setting alone does a lot of the work. This modern restaurant in a small Apulian village cooks entirely from local ingredients, with herbs from its own kitchen garden. The chef spent formative years in Bologna, and the house-made stuffed pasta remembers that. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A grandmother built this family trattoria, her granddaughter now runs the kitchen, and her parents still work the dining room with the kind of attention that makes 1960s wallpaper feel like atmosphere rather than neglect. The menu is Monferrato through and through: vitello tonnato, hand-folded agnolotti, tajarin with porcini. The wine list follows the same logic. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the prices stay honest enough to order a second carafe.

Bucatini all'amatriciana is the reason to come, and 50 Top Italy named theirs the finest in Rome. Il Matriciano is a proper trattoria in Prati, the kind where old regulars never open the menu and the waiters wear what appear to be period costumes. The room is dressed-up bourgeois, the service formal but warm, and the pasta arrives on fine porcelain exactly as it should, sauce clinging, guanciale doing the heavy lifting.

The wine cellar doubles as the breakfast room each morning, which tells you something about how this Sicilian countryside restaurant orders its priorities. Surrounded by olive groves outside Noto, it serves a spread of house-baked pastries and local products, with eggs and fresh juices available to order. 50 Top Italy named it the country's top breakfast, and sitting in the garden with the light coming slow over the valley, it's easy to see why.

A Roman trattoria steps from the Pantheon that has never once been tempted to put a Caesar salad on the menu. The Gargioli family has been feeding the neighborhood for generations with the unapologetic classics: oxtail braised in tomato and celery, fettuccine with chicken innards, artichokes in the cooler months. The wine list is a serious one, and the ricotta and strawberry jam pie is the kind of dessert that makes you forget you had a plan after lunch.

L'Elementare is a casual Roman pizzeria, the thin, crackly-edged kind that arrives fast and costs less than the cocktail you'll have afterward. The crust splits the difference between airy and cracker, and the supplì include one stuffed with 'ndjua and fior di latte, which makes the fried starter the one you'll argue about. The Trastevere location sits next to a row of bars, so you can eat well and then watch everyone else try to.

The smell of baked pastry hits you at the door, but the charcoal grill is what this place is about. It's a lively trattoria-style restaurant in a small Veneto town where prime cuts are the main event, cooked over embers with obvious conviction. The menu nods to season and tradition while slipping in the occasional contemporary detour, and Wednesdays bring a short run of gourmet pizzas that feels less like a gimmick than it sounds.

White tablecloths and a bright room in the Trionfale neighborhood, where a trattoria built around Roman classics draws the kind of crowd that actually knows its guanciale. The team behind it includes a chef with serious fine-dining credentials, which explains why the cacio e pepe and amatriciana feel familiar and yet somehow sharper than you expected. The wine list rewards attention, and the service keeps a pace that doesn't make you feel processed.

A sprawling osteria on the Pozzuoli waterfront that covers a lot of ground, a proper sit-down dining room in shades of green and blue, a wine bar for a casual glass, a garden with lake views, and a shop downstairs selling provisions. The kitchen moves between fried snacks, fish, meat, and traditional pasta nudged toward something more contemporary. The wine list, built over decades of obsessive travel, runs deep and stays reasonably priced.

The spleen sandwich alone has been drawing the brave and the curious to this old-school Palermo institution for longer than anyone working there can remember. It's a casual street food shop in the Kalsa district, with outdoor tables facing the Gothic facade of San Francesco church, serving arancine, panelle, caponata, and cannoli to anyone who bothers to show up. The menu is a short course in what Palermo actually eats.

A plant-only restaurant in Turin where the chef works closely with Piedmontese farmers and lets the season dictate everything, right down to the birch sap in the drinks. The open kitchen keeps the small dining room lively, and the wine list moves comfortably between Champagne and natural bottles. Nothing on the plate comes from an animal, but the cooking is anything but austere.

Carved into the slope of Monte Testaccio, a hill built from ancient broken amphorae, this old-school Roman trattoria has been feeding the neighborhood on quinto quarto, the offal cuts that Testaccio made its own, for what feels like forever. The wine cellar runs deep and the service carries the quiet confidence of six generations. The bucatini all'amatriciana, ranked among Italy's finest, arrives with extra pecorino on the side, unprompted, as it should.

A large fireplace anchors the dining room of this vegetable-forward restaurant set inside a rural villa on the Murgia plateau, where warm wood and old stone set the mood before the food says anything. The seven-course tasting menu shifts with the weather and the season, built around vegetables and wild herbs cooked quickly enough to stay themselves. The wine list leans toward natural and biodynamic producers from the region. Ranked third among Italy's vegetable bistros by 50 Top Italy.

A butcher shop that never quite stopped being one, Da Gigione Gourmand in Pomigliano d'Arco has grown into a sit-down restaurant where the sandwich is still the main event. The family behind it built a following on aged, carefully sourced cuts and fillings that take the format seriously, backed by a solid list of wines and craft beers. It ranked second on 50 Top Italy's Best Sandwiches list, which tells you where the priorities lie.

A Roman osteria a block from the Parliament building that somehow never became a tourist trap, even though it could have. The carbonara is famous enough to rank among Italy's top five, loaded with crispy guanciale, silky egg cream, and enough black pepper to mean business. Roman classics like saltimbocca and abbacchio fill out a menu that regulars navigate without looking. Eat outside in the little alley when the weather plays along.

A neighborhood provisions shop that never quite decided whether it wanted to be a deli or a trattoria, so it became both. Shelves of organic cheeses, oils, and cured meats share the room with about ten tables where regulars eat cooked dishes and serious sandwiches. Everything points back to Sicily, and the family running it clearly knows the producers behind every jar on the shelf.

The menu calls it a "non-amatriciana," and that framing tells you everything about this Prati restaurant. Shallots cooked down to almost nothing and a touch of balsamic vinegar stand in for the usual guanciale swagger, and it works. The room runs Nordic-minimal, the team runs tight, and the cooking looks outward while keeping one foot in Rome. Fase lands at number eight on 50 Top Italy's Best Amatriciana list, which for a rule-breaking version is a pointed result.

Via Margutta has been an artists' haunt since forever, and this vegetarian restaurant fits the neighborhood's slightly romantic self-image without being precious about it. The menu is wide enough that committed carnivores rarely feel ambushed, with tasting menus and à la carte options, and the desserts tend to be the thing people mention unprompted. Spagna metro is steps away, making it easier to justify the second glass from a genuinely considered wine list.

A tiny vegetable bistro tucked into the old center of Catania, where you pick your meal at the counter by choosing how many courses you want rather than what you want, since the menu changes with whatever came in that morning. Tables spill onto the street, the kitchen is open, and the whole thing runs on seasonal produce leaning vegan, with a short list of local natural wines to round it out.

A stuffed pepper is apparently the highest praise in Naples, and locals use one as a nickname for this trattoria a block from the central station. The kitchen has been around forever defending Neapolitan tradition while slipping in the odd bao filled with slow-cooked genovese, which is either heresy or confidence depending on who you ask. Pilgrims and regulars share the same tables, drawn by eggplant parmigiana and a babà that closes the argument.

A family osteria in Monteverde Vecchio whose roots trace back to Amatrice, which means the amatriciana here carries the weight of hometown pride. The Rocchi family sources from small regional producers they know personally, and the wine list moves. 50 Top Italy ranked their amatriciana second in all of Italy, which is the kind of credential that makes you order it before you've even sat down properly.

A sandwich shop in Milan built around one very specific idea: pork from Sienese and Chianina pigs, raised outdoors in Tuscany, smoked over fruit wood, slow-cooked for twelve hours, then finished on oak. The bread comes from ancient Verna wheat, and you pick your sauce from a short list of house-made options. The queue tends to answer any remaining questions you might have.

A sandwich shop and wine bar on the main square of a small Calabrian coastal town, where the menu changes often enough that locals have a reason to keep coming back. The fillings lean hard into regional pantry staples, capocollo, caciocavallo, and 'nduja tucked into house-made pitta or ciabatta, with vegetables that track the season. The sandwiches even have names worth reading. Ranked seventh on 50 Top Italy's Best Sandwiches list.

A vegan trattoria a short walk from Termini that makes its name doing Roman classics without any animal products, cacio e pepe and amatriciana included. The room is casual and unpretentious, the portions are honest, and the menu runs from supplì to seitan mains, so there's no shortage of places to land. A good stop whether you're vegan or just curious what Roman comfort food looks like when the kitchen redraws the rules.

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.

The supplì here come filled with cacio e pepe, amatriciana, and carbonara, which tells you everything about the kitchen's loyalties. This is a casual Roman street food counter tucked into the old alleys between Regola and Ponte, with a Chesterfield sofa, walls covered in scrawl, and a couple of outdoor benches. The fried rice balls are the whole point, though the mozzarella in carrozza keeps people honest about ordering more than one thing.

Three hundred and twenty hectares of Umbrian estate produce nearly everything on the plate at this countryside restaurant outside Gubbio. The game roams a wildlife reserve on the property; the cured meats are made in-house; the herbs come from the woods just outside. A seven-course tasting menu threads it all into something with a strong sense of place. The wine list is long, and the owner is happy to steer you through it.

The name is the capacity: 28 seats in a quietly serious modern restaurant on Via Corsico. The kitchen buys from small producers, uses every scrap of what comes in, and has run that way long enough that it feels like conviction rather than a trend. The current chefs bring central Italian roots and Abruzzi instincts to the menu, which shifts with the season. The room is small enough that the team tends to know who ordered what without checking.

Fresh pasta rolls out of a tiny kitchen visible right by the door, which sets the tone at this old-school Roman trattoria devoted entirely to the cooking of Emilia-Romagna. Salumi, tagliatelle with ragù, and a refrigerated case of desserts at the back make the menu feel like a polite argument for why you should have stayed north. Been around forever, and the regulars eat like they know it.

A neighborhood trattoria in Centocelle, the kind of eastern Rome district tourists rarely bother with, Menabò tours Italian regional cooking with a light, seasonal hand. Pasta alla gricia gets figs or grapes folded in; rigatoni arrives braised Neapolitan-style. The wine list leans natural and traditional, because the name is half promise. Locals who know their producers fill the room.

The building spent past lives as a cinema and a tram depot before becoming this Italian restaurant across from the Bosco Verticale towers. Counter seats and a terrace over the park give you options. The cooking leans into Milanese classics without getting museum-y about it, and at lunch they call the quick meal "schiscèta," the dialect word for a packed lunch, which tells you something about the room's sense of humor.

A counter where the kitchen plays out in front of you sets the tone at this Milan bistro, where grilled meat, fish, and vegetables get finished in plain sight. The menu is classic Italian, anchored by daily specials that shift with what's good, and the wine list runs deep enough to keep things interesting by the glass. The room is relaxed and sociable in the way that only a place that has clearly figured itself out tends to be.

The spaghetti with tuna and bottarga has a name, taratatà, which tells you something about how seriously Sicily is taken here. Giano is a hotel restaurant inside the W near Via Veneto that shifts register through the day, casual at lunch and more considered at dinner, with a kitchen shaped by the influence of Ciccio Sultano of the two-starred Duomo in Ragusa. Cannolo gets a prickly pear consommé; caponata stays caponata.

The dry-ageing chambers are visible from the dining room, which tells you exactly what kind of place La Braseria is before anyone hands you a menu. This meat-focused restaurant near Bergamo sources Italian breeds and in-house ages the beef before it meets a wood and charcoal grill. Warm stone, low light, and a team that knows the wine list cold. It ranked 39th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, if that helps calibrate the occasion.

A neon sign reading "In pizza we trust" greets you inside this Roman pizza restaurant tucked between Porta Portese and Trastevere. The airy, ethereal crust is the foundation everything else is built on, from precise fried starters through to the desserts, with a serious wine list running alongside. It holds a spot on 50 Top Pizza World and took the Pizza dell'Anno award for 2026.

The soundproofed dining room is a deliberate choice: this is a pizza destination serious enough that you're meant to hear your table talk. Sasà Martucci runs a contemporary Neapolitan pizzeria in Caserta built around seasonal produce, short supply chains, and doughs that come classic, pan-fried, or triple-cooked. The Mangiafoglia, tied to a certified tree planting, is a signature worth ordering on principle. Ranked ninth in 50 Top Pizza Italy.