The Best Seafood in Italy

A contemporary dining room perched at the Sant'Erasmo belvedere, with the Adriatic and Monte Conero laid out below in summer. The chef leans into the sea for inspiration, building creative dishes around combinations that don't follow the obvious path. Two tasting menus, or à la carte if you'd rather call the shots yourself. Book ahead; the view is not a secret.

Langoustines arrive at the table still in the pan they were cooked in, with oil, wine, garlic, and rosemary, which tells you most of what you need to know about this seafood restaurant on the Adriatic coast. The fish comes almost entirely from that same sea, the menu never strays onto land, and the wine list follows suit with mostly whites. An old-school institution in Giulianova Lido, and one locals have been counting on for a long time.

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 seafood restaurant tucked inside a private beach club on the Adriatic, where the dining room opens straight onto the sand and the umbrella rows stretch to the horizon. The cooking is careful and occasionally inventive, leaning into the catch with fresh egg pasta that mimics a risotto in the best way. The wine list leans heavily into Champagne, which, given the setting, feels like exactly the right call.

A seafood restaurant in landlocked Bolzano run by two brothers from Naples, which explains both the Campanian lilt to the menu and the wood-fired pizza available come evening. The room goes candlelit and romantic after dark, but the daily spread of raw fish is the main event regardless of hour. Classic Italian maritime cooking, Mediterranean sourced, clean flavors, no fussiness about it.

Sitting inside the Cala del Forte marina with the ruins of the Forte dell'Annunziata visible from the sea-facing tables, this is a seafood restaurant where raw fish gets top billing and an oyster bar handles the side business. The glass-fronted veranda overlooking the promenade is where you want to be, though the contemporary dining room inside is no hardship. The chef knows Ligurian waters well, and the menu follows the season wherever it leads.

A small seafood trattoria on a quiet piazzale, with a terrace that earns its keep on warm evenings. The kitchen leans hard into fish in every form, raw and cooked, with homemade pasta pulling its weight alongside the main plates. The sparkling wine list, mostly Italian with some Champagne threaded in, is available by the glass, which in Parma, a city that lives for its cured meats, feels like a quiet act of rebellion.

Portholes punctuate the walls of this sleek seafood restaurant in Ferrari country, which is either a bold design statement or a gentle reminder that you're nowhere near the coast. The kitchen leans modern but stays honest, letting the catch carry the meal. A daily selection of raw and simply prepared fish anchors the menu, and the tagliolini with langoustine, caviar, and a Martini-spiked cabbage purée shows where the chef's ambitions surface.

A beach club that quietly grew up around its restaurant, Oasi sits on the Follonica waterfront where a husband and wife split duties between kitchen and floor. He's self-taught and lets it show in small, confident ways, the kind of seafood place where the classic preparations get a personal nudge rather than a makeover. The Ligurian coast crowd who wander in for lunch sometimes forget to leave before dinner.

A modern seafood bistro in central Saronno, connected to the Michelin-starred Olio in Origgio, which explains why the kitchen punches with more confidence than the postcode suggests. The menu leans heavily into raw preparations and clean, bright flavors, skipping pasta entirely in favor of fish-forward plates and a handful of meat options. The wine list is short and deliberate. Book ahead, even for lunch, the room fills.

The dining room seems to grow straight out of the beach, with big windows framing the Adriatic and a room that's noticeably more polished than the setting suggests. This is a proper seafood restaurant built around the day's catch, with classic dishes from the Adriatic coast and daily specials that follow the market wherever it goes. The wine list reaches well into France, which is a quiet flex for a place this close to the sand.

The blackboard changes daily, which is the point. This welcoming Palermo trattoria runs on Sicilian seafood, the kind that reads the morning's catch and builds around it. Local tradition anchors the menu, but the kitchen stays light on its feet, and the house caciucco, a fragrant broth packed with John Dory, scorpionfish, sea bass, prawns, and squid, makes a case for both at once. Leave room for the deconstructed cannolo.

A small, modern seafood restaurant on the western shore of Lake Bolsena, where the terrace puts you close enough to the water to feel the logic of eating fish here. The menu leans almost entirely toward the sea, which takes a little faith this far inland, but the kitchen commits to it. You can follow a themed tasting menu or pick your way through the carte, choosing at least two dishes and letting the quiet, unhurried service do the rest.

A fishmonger that gradually started feeding people, Pesceria San Martino is a small, unpretentious seafood restaurant in Ciriè where the front room is intimate and a glass conservatory opens to the garden in summer. The kitchen leans into what you'd expect from its origins: very fresh fish, fried squid available to take away, and a "seafood charcuterie" that earns its quotation marks. Weekends fill fast, so book ahead.

A short walk from Piazza Navona in a city where proximity to a landmark usually means a tourist tax, this seafood restaurant holds its own with a menu built around crudo and whatever the day's catch makes possible. The room is modern and intimate, service reads your mood without hovering, and the team brings real experience to Rome's notoriously competitive dining scene. Go when the evening quiets the neighborhood down.

A seafood-forward restaurant that has been around forever and still books out well ahead, which tells you most of what you need to know. The intimate dining rooms feel genuinely warm rather than fussy, and the service matches. Fish comes prepared with a classic sensibility and lighter modern instincts, while a few Ferrarese meat dishes, salama da sugo among them, hold their own on a menu that is otherwise happily pointed at the sea.

A cabinet of fresh fish greets you at the door, which tells you most of what you need to know about this old-school Sardinian seafood restaurant on the road toward Capoterra. The menu runs from antipasti of tuna and mullet bottarga through grilled skewers, lobster, eel, and more sauces for pasta than you'll need a second visit to work through. Locals who know the bottarga from the burrida have been filling the tables here for generations.

The dining room sits in what used to be the servants' quarters of the Stupinigi Hunting Lodge, which sets a certain mood before the food even arrives. It's a full-service restaurant doing Piedmontese regional cooking, with seafood running alongside as a genuine parallel option, not an afterthought. The wine list leans local and changes weekly, which keeps regulars guessing in the way a good cellar should.

Black truffles turn up with genuine generosity here, which tells you something about how this family-run restaurant in Spoleto's historic center operates. It sits inside the Clitunno hotel, but the mood is its own: an intimate, recently refurbished dining room with seasonal meat and fish, and a terrace on the small square for warmer nights. Park outside the restricted zone and walk in; the stroll through the old town is half the point.

A deconsecrated church and its cloister form the backdrop for this contemporary restaurant in Piacenza, where the terrace alone earns the reservation. The chef describes himself as a meat person, which makes it quietly amusing that the seafood is what stops conversation: a fish soup loaded with crustaceans, mussels, and cuttlefish that arrives tasting like someone meant it. Book outside when the weather cooperates.

Sitting near the alleged birthplace of Christopher Columbus, this seafood-forward trattoria is run by the Scala family, who also operate the well-regarded San Giorgio nearby. The menu leans on the market and the region, with cappon magro appearing often, though meat dishes get a careful, lightly modern treatment too. A covered outdoor terrace opens onto a pedestrian street, and the wine list handles itself well by the glass.

A family-run seafood trattoria in a small town outside Venice where the husband left metalworking for the kitchen and never looked back. The menu leans into classic fish preparations, simply done with good ingredients, and the wife runs the room with the ease of someone who knows every table by name. Regulars pack it out most nights, so book ahead or prepare to watch someone else eat your fish.

A glassed-in veranda they call the "literary veranda" opens onto a citrus garden at the back of an old Bourbon palazzo, and that alone makes Sunrise worth finding. It's a sit-down seafood restaurant with a menu that leans toward fish in every direction, including a full page of raw preparations. Champagne features prominently on the wine list, which tells you something about who this crowd thinks they are.

A seafood restaurant on the Torre del Greco waterfront, with picture windows that pull Capri right into the dining room like a painting someone forgot to take down. The kitchen runs almost entirely on what came out of the sea that morning, with raw preparations, oysters, tartare, and ceviche worth lingering over before the kitchen gets involved. Campanian ingredients throughout, harbour views included at no extra charge.

Tucked off a broad piazza a short walk from Trani's harbour and its cathedral, Terradimare is a small, graceful seafood-forward restaurant where the kitchen follows the daily catch closely and pivots on what came in that morning. The name nods to both land and sea, and the menu honours that, with meat dishes alongside. An all-female front-of-house team runs the room with quiet precision, which sets a tone the food is happy to match.

A 19th-century mansion on the Brenta canal, just outside Venice where the villas outnumber the tourists, houses this classic seafood trattoria. The dining room is simple and welcoming, the kind that lets the fish do the talking: Adriatic scampi, lightly seared octopus, and mixed fried fish from the same waters that have been feeding this corner of the Veneto forever.

A trattoria on the main road through San Nicolò that has built its reputation almost entirely on fish, which is an unlikely move this far inland in Emilia-Romagna. The dining room was recently done up, though the cooking stays traditional. Weekday lunches lean simpler; evenings open into a longer menu if you ask. Sunday winters bring a full meat feast, from anolini in broth to boiled meats, that the regulars have clearly memorized.

A glass-enclosed veranda on Cesenatico's main avenue, busy with summer promenaders just outside the windows, while inside the focus stays firmly on the Adriatic. This is a seafood restaurant in the straightforward sense: raw catches, gratins, pasta, risotto, grilled and baked fish, the daily specials announced aloud at the table. Alberto Faccani, the name behind Magnolia, oversees the kitchen, keeping things rooted in local maritime tradition rather than reaching for the clever.

Despite the name, which translates to golden calf, fish runs the show at this old-school Udine restaurant that has been around forever. The room pulls off a neat trick, pairing sober contemporary design with the weight of a place that clearly predates everything around it. The Sabinot family has kept Friulian tradition going for generations, with seafood-forward plates and seasonal vegetables rounding out the menu.

A tiny doorway on via Assarotti opens into a handful of tables, just enough to fill with regulars who called ahead. This intimate seafood restaurant in Genoa runs on the chef's instinct for pairing classic technique with unexpected combinations, with the focus almost entirely on whatever came off the boat. The cappon magro, a layered Ligurian seafood salad, has its own following. Book before you leave the house.

The catch comes from Fiumicino and Anzio, and the cellar runs to older European whites most restaurants wouldn't bother with. Da Michele is a seafood and wine restaurant in the residential San Paolo district, the kind of place that looks like nothing from outside and runs like a tight ship within. Regulars have been filing back for years, and the wine list alone pulls people in from across the city.

An elegant seafood restaurant a short walk from the Colosseum, Tempio di Iside leans hard into crudi: fish carpaccio, sea urchin roe, langoustines, oysters. Pasta with sweet red shrimp and fresh pecorino quietly dismantles the no-cheese-with-seafood rule, and the spaghetti with clams holds its own. Book ahead if you want one of the outdoor tables in summer, and come prepared: the fish is fresh and the bill reflects that.