The Best Places in Italy

A stilt house on the Brugiano Canal done up in colonial wood and Parisian brasserie details, which is a combination that shouldn't work but somehow does. La Péniche is a seafood and Mediterranean restaurant with a long à la carte menu running from a dedicated oyster list to Cantabrian anchovies and pata negra. In summer, tables out on the floating raft are the ones to ask for. Book ahead.

A lounge bar at the entrance nudges you toward an aperitivo before you've even found your table, which is probably the point. This Cernobbio bistro has a retro-modern room and a terrace that catches the lake breeze in summer, and the kitchen runs a Mediterranean menu with a light, contemporary hand. The crowd tends young and local, the kind who know the pasta already.

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.

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.

Hundreds of candles are lit by hand every evening, which tells you something about the ambitions of the room before the food arrives. La Sponda is the fine-dining restaurant inside Le Sirenuse, with a terrace that looks out over Positano's pastel houses stacked up the cliff. The kitchen leans into southern Italian flavors, Campanian produce, the kind of cooking that feels inevitable once you're sitting there watching the coast go dark.

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.

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.

A restored stone house in Monforte's old quarter, fitted out with glass and steel in a way that shouldn't work but does. Dining happens across several levels connected by staircases steep enough to make you think twice about the second glass of Barolo, though the wine list will tempt you anyway. Piedmontese cooking anchors the menu, a wine bar handles aperitifs up front, and guestrooms mean you can simply stay.

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.

The open kitchen sits center-stage in a spare, spotlight-lit dining room inside the Le Fucine hotel, and the chef works it like he knows people are watching. This is a tasting-menu restaurant with two full journeys on offer, one rooted in Friulian tradition and one tracing the chef's travels, plus a shorter menu that splits the difference. The sommelier handles pairings with evident conviction, which in wine country like this is not a small thing.

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.

Five private dining pods tucked into the greenery give the restaurant its name, though the garden terrace and contemporary indoor room at this hotel restaurant are just as good a reason to show up. The kitchen draws on the lake, the surrounding Alps, Campania, and Puglia in equal measure, with house-made breads quietly making the regional argument. Tasting menus and à la carte both available.

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.

A terrace on a medieval piazza in a hilltop hamlet that barely registers on most maps, Lillotatini is a family-run trattoria serving Umbrian classics, freshwater fish, and truffles when the season allows. The family also runs a wine boutique steps away on the same square, and those bottles migrate onto the restaurant list, which gives the wine conversation a certain built-in authority.

A tiny ravioli shop in a quiet residential corner of Bologna, where a Franco-Italian-Chinese couple cook what they call "migrant" food: Chinese dumplings alongside dishes that wander from Emilia-Romagna through the Mediterranean and into Asia. The menu changes daily with the market, seating runs to about twenty inside, and a few tables appear outside in summer. Book ahead, because this is exactly the kind of neighbourhood spot that fills up fast.

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.

The dining room doubles as a curated object gallery, with quality pieces available through a catalogue in case you fall for the candlestick. This is a refined modern restaurant steps from the Accademia Carrara, with a terrace that earns its oasis billing. The kitchen moves between land and sea, rooted in Bergamo but with the occasional Tuscan detour that nods to the owner's origins. Dress well; the room expects it.

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.