The Best Seafood in Italy

A seafood restaurant on a piazza anchored by the old church of San Frediano in Cestello, where the room feels relaxed but quietly dressed up. The kitchen leans contemporary and fish-forward, from raw preparations and tasting menus to a daily catch you can walk up and point at. The bar runs a thoughtful cocktail list with tapas pairings, and the wine list keeps serious Italian verticals, Masseto and Ornellaia among them.

A short walk from St. Mark's Square, this contemporary seafood restaurant leans into what the kitchen calls lagoon fusion, local Venetian catch dressed up with occasional detours through the Orient. The menu shifts with the season, following whatever the lagoon is actually giving up that week. The wine list runs deep, with some genuinely rare vintages tucked in among the usual suspects.

A short walk from the Cathedral of Monreale, this rustic-elegant restaurant makes a strong case for modern Sicilian seafood cookery without letting the modernness get in the way of the flavours. The kitchen leans on pristinely fresh crudo and pasta that bridges tradition and invention, and the desserts have a reputation for outlasting the meal in the memory. A good reason to linger in Monreale longer than the tourist coaches do.

A glass cabinet near the entrance holds whatever the fishmonger next door landed that morning, and that cabinet is where you should start before you even look at the menu. This is a casual seafood restaurant in Sorrento where the cooking stays out of the way, letting straightforward preparations do the flattering. Ask the staff what came in; they'll steer you better than any printed page will.

A white-on-white dining room a few blocks from the Jesolo seafront, where the kitchen leans hard into the grill and the catch comes in daily. This is a sit-down seafood restaurant, tablecloths and all, run by a couple who have been at it for decades and still work the floor themselves. In summer, a garden bar softens the formality. The family tends a kitchen garden on Sant'Erasmo, the vegetable island in the Venetian lagoon.

A seat overlooking the tourist harbour in Viareggio, this old-school seafood institution has been feeding the city long enough that regulars don't bother consulting the menu. The kitchen handles crustaceans and deep-water catch with quiet confidence, and the spaghetti alla Trabaccolara, a Viareggio recipe built on tomato and fish, is the dish locals will mention unprompted. The room is classic and elegant, the service professional without being stiff.

A family-run trattoria on Positano's main drag, Da Vincenzo has been feeding the town long enough that the current chef shares a name with his grandfather, who started the whole thing. The menu leans heavily on fish, the atmosphere is pleasant without trying too hard, and a handful of pavement tables put you right in the middle of the passerby parade. Cocktails from lunch onward suggest nobody here is in a rush to get back to the beach.

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.

Charcoal smoke threads through almost every course here, including dessert, which tells you immediately what kind of cooks run this small seafood restaurant near piazza Zama. A husband-and-wife team, him cooking and her running the room, they bring real technique and the occasional Basque detour to Rome. Tables fill fast on evenings, so book ahead.

The outdoor terrace sits a few steps from the Viareggio promenade, which makes choosing a table inside a decision you'll quietly regret. This is a seafood restaurant where the kitchen leans on personal technique rather than obvious spectacle, the wine list rewards browsing, and the service is the kind that feels attentive without being theatrical. Bring people you want to linger with; the sea view does a lot of the conversational heavy lifting.

The terrace here has been hanging over the Bay of Naples for as long as anyone can remember, which tells you something about the view before the food even arrives. Lunch runs as a relaxed seafood spot; evenings shift into fine-dining mode with a different name and a different register. The chef leans into classic Campanian fish cookery with enough of a contemporary nudge to keep things from feeling like a museum.

Large windows that open onto the Rapallo promenade in summer set the tone at this seafood restaurant inside a small seafront hotel. The room is intimate and softly lit, the kind of place where the service is quiet and unhurried without being invisible. The kitchen lets the fish and seafood speak, keeping preparations clean enough that the ingredients do the persuading. A sensible choice when you want the Ligurian coast on a plate without a lot of theatre around it.

A seafood-forward restaurant near the Expo Fiera area with the kind of pressed-tablecloth formality that tells you the fish will be serious. The kitchen leans on classic Ligurian technique, so expect grilled whole fish, warm seafood salad, and fish braised with potatoes and Taggiasche olives rather than anything trying to surprise you. Meat exists on the menu, quietly, for the one person at the table who always orders it.

Wooden panels and nautical fittings put you somewhere between a vintage fishing boat and a proper Italian seafood restaurant, which is exactly the spirit of L'Acciuga. The kitchen works from fresh catch and interprets it through a Romagnolo lens, with the anchovy spaghetti a good argument for staying put through dessert. The bar counter adds cocktails and kombucha to an otherwise serious wine list, because why not.

One wall here is carved straight into the cliff face, which sets the tone. This seafood restaurant in Monterosso al Mare climbs above the village on the salita dei Cappuccini, and the upper terrace has the kind of Ligurian coastline view that makes you forget to order. The menu changes daily by blackboard or by whatever the server recites, leaning heavily on the sea but never ignoring the land. Book the terrace; the walk up is short.

Grilled fish and a view of the Ionian Sea from a table right on the Salento coast, which is about as direct a statement of intent as a seafood restaurant can make. The kitchen keeps things uncluttered: the best of the catch goes over the grill, while shellfish get preparations spare enough to stay out of their own way. It's a room that has no interest in cleverness, which, here, is exactly the point.

The dining room sits seven metres below sea level, which tells you something about where you are before the food does. This old-school trattoria in the Po delta has been in the same family for generations, and the kitchen leans hard into the estuary around it: eel roasted with white polenta, clam pasta, sole with fresh mayonnaise. The room feels like someone's grandmother never quite let go of it, and that's the whole point.

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.

A bistro in the heart of Domodossola where the fish menu splits in two directions: Italian tradition on one side, the chef's native Spain on the other, with paella representing the home team. The room has been updated over the years, and in summer the terrace looks out over the old town center. His wife runs the front of house and knows the wine list well, which is the kind of detail that makes a place feel like someone actually lives there.

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 small seafood restaurant perched above its own private beach club in Golfo Aranci, La Spigola serves modern Sardinian cooking built around whatever came off local boats. The dining room looks straight out over the water, and the sea does most of the decorating. The wine list is relaxed until the last few pages, where aged bottles from the 1970s and 80s appear as if someone forgot to stop collecting.

The panoramic veranda hangs over the Torbole lakefront, which makes the lake-fish focus feel less like a concept and more like the obvious thing to do. This is a small, polished restaurant where the cooking leans on freshwater catches and local produce, with a tasting menu built around the lake and an à la carte that lets the land and garden join in. The spaghetti with freshwater prawns, ginger, and lime has a following.

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.