The Best Places in Italy

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.

The name nods to the year the surrounding hotel opened, and the room leans into that Liberty-era design, but the cooking is firmly now. This contemporary restaurant in Soprabolzano runs a tasting menu built around Alto Adige produce, including Wagyu beef raised on the chef's home turf in the Renon region. A wine list of nearly 400 regional labels gives the kitchen a lot to work with, and non-alcoholic pairings are taken just as seriously.

A candlelit dining room in the old town where the smell of wood hits you before the menu does. This is a Piedmontese restaurant run entirely by women, serving two tasting menus and an à la carte that leans into meat the way the region always has, while also offering seafood for the unconvinced. The cooking is rooted in tradition but steered somewhere more contemporary, with seasonal ingredients doing most of the persuading.

The name is Sicilian dialect for "shop," and the place did start as a grocery before becoming a trattoria and wine bar with paper tablecloths that no one seems to mind. The kitchen leans on whatever the market and the sea are offering that day, and the wine list runs Sicilian and beyond. Tiny room, unpredictable hours by season, and parking in central Giardini Naxos is its own small adventure, so call ahead.

The garden terrace faces the beach close enough to hear the sea, and that alone explains why tables fill up in summer. This is a modern seafood restaurant inside Hotel Mare, where the kitchen leans heavily on whatever swam recently, prepared with enough contemporary technique to keep things interesting without losing the plot. The wine list runs deeper than you'd expect at a coastal spot. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

A small, intimate restaurant in Palermo's historic center where the chef reframes Sicilian classics with a modern eye, meat and fish both getting the treatment. The wine list runs entirely Sicilian, with its own section carved out for Etna wines by subregion, which tells you where the kitchen's loyalties lie. The room is simple and the cooking is the point.

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.

A fishmonger that acquired a dining room and never quite lost the fishmonger's directness, Acqua & Sale serves unfussy fresh seafood in a relaxed, well-appointed space in Scafati. The menu leans Mediterranean with the occasional personal flourish, including raw options alongside dishes like porchetta-style tuna with green sauce and peppers. Good for anyone who wants their fish cooked without a lot of theater around it.

The courtyard, tucked behind Hotel Vilòn, is one of those spots that feels like it belongs to you personally. This is a contemporary Italian restaurant where the chef draws on Campanian roots to rework Mediterranean cooking into something polished without being stiff. The Roman classics, carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, are all here and handled seriously. The room inside is quietly beautiful, decorated with real care and none of the usual hotel-restaurant pomp.

You cross the Brembo river on foot to reach this high-end agriturismo, meadows and Orobic peaks on all sides. The kitchen cooks alpine and contemporary, with meat and dairy from the land around it doing the heavy lifting. The cheese trolley that closes the meal is its own argument for staying put, and the wine list tilts toward regional labels and naturals, with dozens available by the glass.

A family-run seafood restaurant in the shadow of the shipyards, in the old Panzano district that was purpose-built to house the workers who built the ships. The room is simple and the portions are generous, in the way that places run by families for a long time tend to be. The menu leans classic fish and seafood, and if you're feeling ambitious, there's a video on hand explaining how to make seafood risotto at home.

Wood-paneled walls and a meat-heavy menu set Ai Gondolieri apart in a city where every other trattoria defaults to fish. Tucked just behind the Guggenheim in Dorsoduro, this rustic restaurant leans into traditional Venetian cooking: braised lamb, cured hams, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and a wine cellar stocked deep enough to keep you from ever looking at the cocktail list, though that's apparently substantial too.

The dining room is a 17th-century olive oil press, stone mill and wooden press still in place under vaulted ceilings in a medieval village that looks like it was designed by a tourism board. The restaurant leans into its setting with Ligurian seafood given an imaginative push, the catch of the day landing in an Italian-style ceviche, local ingredients doing most of the talking. The simpler bistro around the corner, I Torchietti, is run by the same team if you want a lighter commitment.

The saffron risotto with ossobuco reduction is the calling card here, carried over from the parent fine-dining restaurant down the block into something looser and more approachable. This is a contemporary Italian bistro where shareable plates of gnocco fritto and the house mondeghili meatballs are designed to be paired with cocktails built specifically around the menu. Milan at its most quietly self-assured.

The ground-floor restaurant inside the W Florence runs on pulsing music and a metropolitan buzz that feels more Tokyo-by-way-of-LA than Tuscany. Akira Back is the chef's Italian debut, and the kitchen plays with Korean, Japanese, and American flavors in a way that's loose and a little theatrical. Cocktails are the natural pairing here, and the bar leans into that obligation happily.

The wine list runs to over 2,000 labels, which is less a list and more a library. Al Carroponte is a contemporary Italian restaurant in Bergamo where the cellar is the point of pride, though the kitchen holds its own with a menu that moves between lobster and caviar and a generous spread of cured hams, cheeses, and finger food. The room buzzes, the crowd lingers, and the owner's obsession with wine gives the whole place its particular energy.

A hidden lift behind the arcades of Piazza Cavour whisks you up to a first-floor dining room where the wallpaper is as colorful as the cooking. This contemporary Italian restaurant pairs an inventive, carefully plated menu with a serious Franciacorta-focused wine list and, come evening, cocktails from the bar downstairs. The chef moves fluently between meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes, and half portions let you cover more ground without consequence.

Dinner in a botanical garden with a tiny vegetable patch growing a few feet from your table sets the tone at this hotel restaurant inside Palazzo Murat. The Attanasio family runs it, and the Mediterranean menu swings between meat and fish depending on the season, with lighter options at lunch. The bar keeps things going after dinner with cocktails and a serious wine list.

Aged cuts are displayed like exhibits before they ever see the grill, which tells you what Al Pilèr thinks the main event is. It's a meat-forward Sicilian restaurant in the hill-town centre of Nicosia, where the menu rounds out the charred headliners with generous, colour-forward classic dishes that lean slightly creative. The name comes from an old boundary stone that once split the Arab and Norman quarters of town, still partly visible nearby.

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.

Culatello ham ages on the premises here for up to 38 months, and the curing rooms are open to visitors, which tells you something about how seriously this Emilian restaurant takes the subject. The menu runs from gran lesso to tortelli with a faint sweetness, and the cheese trolley alone could occupy a pleasant half hour. Lambrusco fans will find the wine list flattering; everyone else can lean on the French section.

Stone walls and Chianti hills visible through the windows set the scene at this old-school Tuscan restaurant, where the kitchen takes traditional recipes and nudges them, carefully, into something more contemporary without losing the plot. The room carries the weight of the building without feeling like a museum, and the front-of-house guides wine choices with the sort of quiet authority that makes you feel like you chose well yourself.

Stone vaulting from an old monastery frames the dining room at this seafood-forward restaurant on the Marina di Casal Velino promenade. The chef grows some of his own produce and, on occasion, catches his own fish, which is either admirably dedicated or quietly unhinged depending on your point of view. The cooking pulls from Campanian tradition and bends it with a personal touch, making it the most ambitious table on a stretch of coast that doesn't have many.

A medieval castle that once belonged to one of Italy's great statesmen is an excellent place to eat anchovy and peppers, and the kitchen here leans into that energy. This is a sit-down restaurant with a modern Piedmontese menu, where classic regional ingredients get a contemporary reworking and the chef makes a point of using every scrap of what comes through the door. Fish dishes from beyond the region round things out.

Tribal motifs on the walls, wicker chairs, and dark wood tables set the mood at this relaxed but polished seafood restaurant just off a busy stretch of road in Marina di Pietrasanta. The kitchen leans Mediterranean with a cosmopolitan eye, and the wine cellar runs deep and international. Steamed langoustines and prawns with crisp vegetables have become the kind of dish regulars order without consulting the menu.

Tucked into one of Lucca's old-town squares, this trattoria spreads across four dining rooms, one lined floor to ceiling with bottles and the others hung with artwork from the city's famous comics festival. The menu runs Tuscan classics, meat and fish both, and the tortelli filled and sauced the traditional Lucca way is the thing to order. In summer, tables spill outside into the square.

A cycle path is all that stands between the terrace and Lake Garda, which means a warm evening here involves a quiet negotiation for the outdoor tables. This is a lakeside restaurant leaning heavily into fish, split between local catch from the water you're practically sitting in and seafood from the coast. The kitchen balances the classic and the contemporary without making a fuss about it. A handful of guestrooms upstairs, all with lake views, if you'd rather not leave.

A timber Alpine house in the Val di Non, where a husband-and-wife team has been running a regional restaurant for what feels like forever. She works the room with the ease of someone who actually likes people; he cooks local beef, char, game, and cheese with the quiet precision of a man who has made these dishes a thousand times and isn't bored yet. A few fish dishes and seasonal additions from beyond the valley round things out.

One dining room looks straight onto the bell tower of the Basilica Collegiata; the other turns inward and quieter. Alloro is a small, modern Sicilian restaurant in Acireale's baroque center, where the kitchen takes traditional island cooking somewhere more assertive and personal. Tasting menus or à la carte, the meal ends with a dessert riff on tiramisù they've renamed with a pun that works better in Italian but lands either way.

You reach this mountain restaurant by cable car from Riscone, then on foot through the snow, which sets expectations appropriately. Norbert Niederkofler's "Cook the Mountain" philosophy means the seasonal Alpine menu wastes nothing and imports nothing it doesn't have to. The five tables with the view go to tasting-menu guests, booked well ahead. The last cable car down leaves at 5pm, so yes, plan accordingly.

A neighborhood bistro where the menu shifts with the seasons and the kitchen sources from small producers, so what arrives at the table depends on the week as much as the chef. The room is relaxed but not sloppy, casual enough that you won't feel underdressed. Ask the owner about wine and be prepared for actual enthusiasm rather than the usual recitation; he steers the pairings and clearly means it.

The tilde in the name nods to the sea between Campania and Sardinia, the chef's two homes, which tells you something about the ambition before you've sat down. This is a small, intimate restaurant with an open kitchen and handmade décor throughout, the name itself meaning "by hand." The cooking is creative and Sardinian at its core, with enough of a personal angle to feel distinct from the island's more traditional spots.

Exposed stone walls and wooden beams from a Renaissance palazzo sit alongside contemporary furniture at this fusion bistro tucked into Palazzo Forti. The menu moves between traditional meat and fish dishes and Asian touches, with small sharing plates like bao alongside more substantial options. On warm nights, the cloister with its old walls and soft lighting is the place to sit, and Sunday brunch draws a loyal local crowd.

A historic building on the South Tyrolean wine road, with a garden romantic enough to make you forget the menu is short. This is a regional restaurant where the chef leans into local ingredients, venison and Termeno asparagus alongside house-cured speck, with a few fish dishes rounding things out. Everything has a modern, considered feel without straining for it. Guestrooms are available if the wine list makes leaving seem like a poor decision.

A castle in the middle of a small South Tyrolean village that somehow runs two dining rooms with completely different personalities. Stain is the wood-paneled Tyrolean stube side, with regional cooking and terrace tables when the weather cooperates. La Lumosa seats four tables and leans into a five or six course contemporary tasting menu. Twelve suites upstairs mean you don't have to figure out the drive home.

A family-run osteria tucked into a pretty Alpine village where two valleys meet and the Presanella mountains loom above. Three small dining rooms carry a genuine mountain feel, and a veranda with floor-to-ceiling windows lets the landscape do its thing. The kitchen leans into the region, turning local char and venison into something more considered than the surroundings might suggest, without ever losing the thread back to traditional recipes.

Solar panels on a centuries-old farmhouse roof set the tone for this countryside restaurant in Ambivere, where the team is quietly making a point about not having to choose between old and new. The kitchen leans into local farmers and seasonal produce, turning out modern plates that still feel rooted in Lombard tradition. The dining room is polished without being stiff, and the service has the kind of easy warmth that tends to outlast trends.