The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Italy

A family-run contemporary Sicilian restaurant in lower Modica's central piazza, where the menu leans on the island's ingredients while quietly smuggling in South American influences, a culinary heirloom from a grandfather who came home from Venezuela with ideas. The kitchen reframes those influences through a Sicilian lens, presenting colorful, carefully composed dishes. Tables spill outside in summer, and the service is warm and unhurried.

Stone walls and a terrace looking out over the Tuscan hills make Daniela the natural endpoint of a wander through San Casciano's cobblestone lanes. It's a cozy trattoria on the main square, the kind that keeps things rooted in local tradition, with handmade pastas, wild boar pappardelle, and roasted rabbit alongside a wine list that stays mostly in Tuscany.

The name is dialect for "what a shame," which the restaurant leans into as a gentle dare to stop driving past. It's a secluded little villa outside Mercenasco, the dining room anchored by a fireplace, serving the kind of traditional Piedmontese cooking that makes the Canavese countryside worth the detour. In winter, fritto misto and bagna caoda fill the tables; in warmer months, a terrace pulls the meal outdoors into the green.

Wrought-iron tables spill onto one of Portofino's tiny squares, with the castle-crowned promontory framing the view like someone staged it. This contemporary Italian restaurant is run by the Cerea family, who also oversee the three-Michelin-starred Da Vittorio in Bergamo, so the kitchen takes the food seriously even when the scenery is doing most of the heavy lifting. Book ahead; the tables are few and the square is famous.

The Cerea family, who built their reputation in Bergamo, opened this contemporary Italian restaurant tucked behind a Louis Vuitton flagship in the fashion district. The room splits between a buzzy ground floor and a quieter mezzanine, and the look is elegant bistro rather than runway-adjacent minimalism. The menu runs Italian classics reinterpreted with a light modern hand, plus a chef's tasting option for the table that came to commit.

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.

A former monastery just outside Tropea, now home to a tasting-menu restaurant where the citrus fruit on your plate may have been growing in the garden an hour before. The kitchen works through contemporary Calabrian cooking across multi-course menus, leaning on vegetables and produce from the property. The wine list keeps it regional, and there's a bar if you'd rather start with a cocktail than a pairing.

A self-taught chef who leaves the kitchen to talk you through his food is either very confident or very charming, and this intimate contemporary restaurant in a quiet corner of Busto Arsizio suggests both. Pastel interiors, no parking drama, and a menu built on fermentation and measured acidity, Italian at its core with quiet nods toward Asia. Tasting menus or à la carte, your call.

A short regional menu rooted in the Marche, tucked into the old upper town behind a medieval tower. The team keeps the selection tight, leaning on whatever came from the market that morning, so a few fish dishes appear and disappear with the week. The boned caramelised rabbit, a riff on a classic local preparation, gives a sense of the kitchen's thinking: familiar flavors, quietly reconsidered. A neighborhood trattoria for people who actually live here.

Tucked between the Uffizi and Ponte Vecchio, this small contemporary Italian restaurant earns its location without leaning on it. The room reads quietly chic without trying, and the kitchen applies the same logic to cooking: Italian ingredients handled with restraint, meant to settle rather than dazzle. A well-chosen cheese and charcuterie spread rounds things out, and the all-Italian wine list gives the Supertuscans plenty of room to make their case.

The open kitchen greets you at the door at this old-school Florentine trattoria, which is either charming or alarming depending on how you feel about watching your lunch happen in real time. Pici, pappa al pomodoro, a proper bistecca, cantucci to finish: the menu is a short tour of Tuscan cooking done without fuss. Book well ahead, because the regulars have claimed their spots and are not moving.

Stone walls and a terrace at the foot of a medieval church set the scene at this country restaurant in a hilltop village on the Lazio-Umbria border. The cooking leans into local ingredients without fussing over them, which turns out to be harder than it sounds. Small-producer Lazio wines round out a meal that reads like the region explaining itself quietly. The kind of place you find by accident and then tell everyone about.

The wood paneling in the more romantic of the two Stube dining rooms has been here since the 13th century, which puts the candlelight in perspective. This is a family-run restaurant in a private house in the South Tyrolean hills, where the chef works Mediterranean influences and a strong lean toward fish into the local Alto Adige framework. A summer terrace and a handful of guestrooms round things out if you'd rather not drive back down.

The dining room inside the Hotel de la Ville faces the Villa Reale and leans into a clubby, British-inflected elegance that feels oddly right for Monza. This is a sit-down restaurant with two tasting menus, one tracing the chef's Campanian roots and one reworking Lombard tradition, though you can order freely from either. Vegetables come from the hotel's own organic garden, which is the kind of detail that sounds like marketing until the food arrives.

Nino Di Costanzo, a chef with multiple Michelin stars to his name, runs this fine dining room inside a hotel on one of Naples' grand central thoroughfares. The menu leans into Neapolitan identity, with dishes named in dialect and plated in a quietly modern register. Local art hangs in a softly lit, minimalist space that earns its formality without being stiff. The kind of dinner where the service knows exactly when to appear and when to disappear.

A pasta producer from Gragnano opened this counter-style pasta bar facing Castel Nuovo, and the menu runs to 126 varieties, which sounds excessive until you're staring it down and can't decide. You sit at a long counter watching the kitchen work through the whole catalog, classics alongside combinations you wouldn't have thought to request. Portions à la carte are generous; a tasting menu covers more ground in smaller plates if you want the full tour.

The summer terrace looks out over the Sassi, which is a view that tends to make people order another glass. Inside a carefully restored old palazzo, this is a tasting-menu restaurant built around three named journeys through modern cooking and the traditions of Basilicata, though you can also pick individual courses. The wine list leans local without going parochial, and the service has the rare quality of seeming interested in you.

The drive up the slopes of Mt Etna to reach this creative fine dining restaurant inside the Villa Neri is half the experience. The chef builds tasting menus around Sicilian ingredients, sometimes reaching for complexity but never losing the thread of the island. The wine list leans hard into Etna labels, including the property's own, which pairs neatly with the olive oil they also press themselves.

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.

Tufa stone walls from the fifteenth century form the dining room at this Sicilian restaurant tucked into Ortigia, a short walk from the cathedral. The kitchen takes traditional island cooking and tilts it somewhere personal, the kind of place that's been around forever without feeling like a museum. Candlelight, period wood, wrought iron, and a menu that apparently ends better than it begins, if the inspector's nudge about dessert is any guide.

Portraits and sketches of opera singers line every wall of this intimate hotel dining room inside the Grand Hotel et de Milan, where Verdi himself was once a long-term guest. The kitchen turns out Milanese and Italian cooking with a Mediterranean lean, shaped by celebrated Neapolitan chef Gennaro Esposito in a consulting role. Jackets optional, but the room suggests you might want to try.

A narrow, low-lit dining room on a quiet Cagliari street, where the menu moves between clean Italian classics and the occasional sharp pivot, like a tuna carpaccio that borrows Japanese teriyaki and anchors it with Sardinian tomato chutney. The kitchen reads as a contemporary Italian restaurant that knows when to stay traditional and when not to. Small, considered, and not trying to be anything other than what it is.

The aged-fish tasting menu is the calling card at this creative modern restaurant tucked into the old center of a small Lake Garda village. The two chefs run both the kitchen and the floor, turning out Mediterranean-leaning plates that move between land, sea, and freshwater with equal comfort. In good weather, tables spill outside under a pergola ringed by walnut trees, which is a very nice problem to have.

The charcoal grill has been the main attraction at this old-school South Tyrolean restaurant since long before anyone eating there was born. The Schmieder family has run it for decades, and the smoke-kissed meats are still the reason to come, though the kitchen also moves through Italian seafood and land dishes with quiet confidence. A family member curates the wine list personally, which shows. It sits just off the Bolzano highway, convenient in the way that only truly committed restaurants can be.

Five tables, no printed menu, and a Roman chef whose cooking wanders freely between Mexico City and Southeast Asia without stopping to explain itself. Ego is an intimate tasting-room experience in the Ostiense quarter where you pick your number of courses and hand the rest to the kitchen. The front-of-house doubles as sommelier, and the wine pairings by the glass are as considered as the food. Book well ahead.

Tucked into a small larch wood on the road to Passo Tre Croci, this agriturismo sits among the Dolomites and runs its own stable on the property. The restaurant leans hard into Alpine tradition: house-made charcuterie and aged cheeses share the table with creamy butter, local herbs, and berries foraged nearby. The kind of place where the ingredient list is basically a hike you could take after lunch.

The building itself was Uruguay's pavilion at Expo 2015, which explains why a steakhouse in Origgio has mountain views and architectural ambition. It's a South American grill focused on Uruguayan beef, with a live parilla fire burning in full sight of the dining room. The meat traces back to certified Uruguayan farms, and the parillero works it slowly. Uruguayan and Italian wines handle the rest.

Wooden tables, soft lighting, and chamber music drifting through a small dining room in Latina: Elementi is the kind of quietly confident restaurant that doesn't need to announce itself. The menu moves between land and sea, with house-marinated anchovies and a duck breast that shows real precision. The cooking has a personal stamp, rooted in the flavors of Lazio and the Mediterranean, and the whole evening feels unhurried in the best possible way.

Tortello stuffed with Neapolitan ragù is the tell: the chef grew up in Campania and cooks in Emilia, and the menu lands squarely between both regions. This hotel restaurant in a central park has its own entrance and tall windows onto the greenery, which gives it the feel of a standalone place. The kitchen covers meat, fish, and vegetarian with equal attention, and the pasta alone makes a case for lingering over a second course.

A wine shop steps from the Colosseum that quietly turns into a proper dinner spot once the sun goes down. Lunch is casual, guided by a blackboard and a daily special; evenings open into more intimate rooms behind the visible kitchen, where the chef works seasonal ingredients with real technique. The wine list splits its loyalty evenly between Italy and France, which feels like the right diplomatic move given the ownership.

An old-school trattoria in Emilia-Romagna that traces its roots to a post-war wine shop, Entrà has been feeding the same kind of hunger for generations. The kitchen's guiding rule, stated plainly: no reinvention when the original works. Pumpkin tortelli with meat ragù and roast guinea fowl on seasonal salad are the things people drive out to località Entrà for. Around 400 wines to keep you at the table longer than planned.

A trattoria in Teramo's historic centre run by three friends, two in the kitchen and one managing the room and wine, all of them young enough to still be excited about it. The cooking stays rooted in Abruzzo, with the occasional contemporary nudge that sharpens rather than distracts. The menu is short, the sourcing is local, and the desserts tend to linger in the memory longer than expected.

A tuff-stone building on the Gianfranco Fino wine estate, with picture windows framing the vineyards and a terrace for when you need even more countryside. The restaurant upstairs serves modern meat and fish dishes, many cooked with the estate's own wines, alongside a vegetarian menu built around produce from the kitchen garden. The wine list is essentially the winery's back catalogue, which makes ordering feel less like a decision and more like a tasting.

Picture windows framing the Umbrian hills flood the dining room with the kind of light that makes you want to linger. This is the restaurant inside Borghi dell'Eremo resort, where the kitchen leans into traditional Umbrian cooking and the estate raises its own rabbits, which end up in a ragù over saffron tagliatelle. Unhurried, landscape-forward, and probably not where you're going if you're in a rush to get somewhere else.

Inside a palazzo off Genoa's grandest square, Etra hides its entrance deep in the building's courtyard, which is either annoying or atmospheric depending on your mood. Once inside, the dark, minimalist dining room doubles as a rotating art gallery, the name itself being an anagram of arte. Creative Italian tasting menus run the kitchen's ambitions, built around technical precision and an obvious restlessness to keep things moving.

A wood-fired oven running through the dining room signals what kind of place this is: a polished contemporary Italian restaurant tucked into a hotel in the Modenese countryside, where the kitchen plays both sides, handmade pasta with ragù alongside fresh fish and aged grilled meats. The sommelier navigates a serious wine list with quiet confidence and will pour even the coveted bottles by the glass.

Dinner on a terrace shaded by lemon trees, in the old center of Modica, is a reasonable way to spend an evening. This is a family-run restaurant where two sisters split the duties, one in the kitchen and one running the room, and together they cook modern Sicilian food that quietly folds in spices and exotic notes without making a fuss about it. The wine list is long and the recommendations are good.

The name means "fairytale" in Piedmontese, and the dining room of this fine dining restaurant does gaze out over the Langa hills like something from a storybook. The kitchen leans into local tradition without getting stuck in it, running a tasting menu built around the estate's own vegetable garden alongside an à la carte that moves between meat, fish, and produce with quiet confidence. The wine list is thoughtfully kept.

A family trattoria on the western shore of Lake Garda, with a cellar room where the smell of wine does most of the hosting before anyone takes your order. The dining room runs warm and old-school, the enclosed veranda lets in softer light, and the kitchen keeps things Italian and seasonal without making a fuss about it. The kind of place where the cooking tastes like someone's grandmother approved the recipe.

An open kitchen anchors the dining room at this Indonesian-influenced restaurant in Treviso, where an Italian chef with deep roots in the cuisine serves contemporary takes on the classics. The space splits between a cocktail bar with street-food snacks and a proper sit-down restaurant, which is a useful thing to know before you walk in underdressed. The wine list leans heavily on organic and biodynamic labels, a pairing that makes more sense than it sounds.

Old wooden beams overhead, a period courtyard below, and a kitchen running two tasting menus that split the difference between new experiments and long-standing signatures. Feva is a creative fine-dining restaurant tucked into the historic center of Castelfranco Veneto, where the chef keeps one menu in constant motion and another anchored to the dishes regulars would riot over losing. A shorter lunch menu keeps things accessible when the mood isn't fully ceremonial.

The olive oil on the table comes straight from the estate, which tells you something about how seriously this Umbrian restaurant takes its pantry. It sits in an elegant villa above Todi, with views that make lingering over a long lunch feel obligatory rather than indulgent. The menu stays rooted in regional tradition while nudging things into modern territory, and the wine list throws in a surprisingly serious champagne selection for a hilltop in Umbria.

A medieval tower inside one of Europe's smallest walled towns makes for a striking dining room, and the chef leans into the contrast: vaulted stone overhead, modern plates below. This contemporary restaurant in Val Venosta runs on regional and estate-grown ingredients, including Wagyu raised on the property. The outdoor terrace books out fast in summer, so plan ahead.

Tucked into a quiet residential corner of L'Aquila's historic centre, FØRMA is an intimate contemporary restaurant with a minimalist room that means the food does all the talking. The chef keeps his dishes to three core ingredients, leaning on local Abruzzo produce and the occasional fermented note. A dessert that disguises white-chocolate mousse as meringue with a dusting of liquorice gives you the general idea: restrained until it isn't.

Tucked inside an educational complex on the edge of the city, this contemporary Italian restaurant is where the chef's Abruzzese roots do most of the talking. Vivid colors, confident flavors, and a menu that feels rooted in home cooking without being stuck there. The space shares a building with a bistrot, which tells you the setup is a little unconventional, but the food plays it straight.