The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Italy

An old-school trattoria in Prati where vintage toy cars line the shelves and white tablecloths share the room with a counter where you can eat and talk to the kitchen. The cooking runs deep into Roman tradition, offal and pasta and cod, all handled with the kind of quiet confidence that doesn't need to announce itself. The carbonara has its own reputation. The wine list rewards the curious.

The Campari family opened this cocktail bar under the glass vaults of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele back when standing at a counter with a drink in hand was a novelty worth naming, and the house bitters were the whole point. It holds a spot on Europe's 50 Best Bars, and the negronis arrive in surroundings that make every other bar feel like it needs to try harder. Dress accordingly.

Tortellini made with cream skimmed straight from the family dairy is the detail that explains everything about this old-school Emilian osteria. The kitchen cooks in the tradition of the region with a wood grill doing heavy lifting on the secondi, and nearly every ingredient traces back to the farm next door. You can buy the same dairy products in the shop on your way out, which feels either very convenient or very dangerous.

Bread arrives as a course in its own right here, which tells you most of what you need to know about how seriously this all-vegetarian restaurant takes itself. The team, both trained under Niko Romito, runs a tightly focused kitchen in central Isernia where technique does the heavy lifting. Nothing on the plate is decorative; everything earns its place, and the cooking has a clean, unshowy confidence that a lot of meat-forward restaurants would envy.

A sushi restaurant in Porta Romana where the case for Japanese traditionalism is made quietly, through precise knife work and clean preparations that don't need architectural plating to make their point. An omakase counter lets you watch the chef work up close. The sake selection is taken seriously alongside the wine list, and tempura with wasabi salt has a way of settling any doubts about the kitchen's priorities.

A fish counter greets you at the door, which sets the tone for everything that follows at this polished seafood restaurant a short walk from Campo de' Fiori. The room is elegant, the service is quietly professional, and the wine list is enormous in a way that rewards browsing. The crowd trends toward Rome's discreet moneyed set, and the staff seems constitutionally allergic to fuss. Ranked fifth among Italy's fish restaurants by 50 Top Italy.

A seafood osteria just outside Rome where the kitchen leans hard on tradition but plates it with an elegance that would embarrass most trattorias. The cooking is rooted in classic coastal flavors, no reinvention for its own sake, just sharper execution year after year. The wine list skews generous on price, and the spirits selection runs to around eighty bottles if the night calls for it.

Carbonara is practically a religion in Rome, and Luciano Monosilio has built his restaurant around a version the city takes seriously. The menu reaches past that signature into creative Italian cooking with strong Lazio roots, the flavors direct and well-defined without the usual fuss. Downstairs, a pasta laboratory shares the basement with Veleno, a bar for aperitivo or cocktail pairings. A lounge upstairs rounds out what is quietly a full evening.

A terrace with a clear line to the Aeolian Islands is a reasonable excuse to linger over a Sicilian dinner, and the kitchen here gives you plenty of other reasons. This is a relaxed but serious restaurant in a small village outside Messina, with tasting menus that run a few courses and an à la carte side for those who prefer to choose. The wine list leans Sicilian and priced without greed, which is its own kind of hospitality.

Twelve seats at the counter, no menu, and the chef decides everything, which is the whole point of omakase. This is an intimate sushi counter in central Prato run by an Italian chef whose years of travel through Japan show up in the fish he selects each morning at market. The course changes daily, the wine list is solid, and the room fills fast enough that booking borders on mandatory.

A medieval courtyard in central Bologna is a genuinely odd setting for a sushi restaurant, but the contrast works. The dining room runs modern bistro, and in summer the courtyard fills up nicely. The menu stays close to Japanese tradition with a few personal riffs, and the front-of-house team is unusually good at walking newcomers through both the food and the sake list without making anyone feel remedial.

The cannelloni here, filled with young beef and finished with fior di latte, have been on the menu long enough to be considered a local landmark. This is an old-school Lazio trattoria in the hill town of Olevano Romano, family-run for generations, with interiors that feel genuinely lived-in rather than staged. The kitchen works through offal, lamb, and farmyard ragù without any detour toward the tourist-friendly middle ground.

The sushi counter runs omakase only, eight to eleven courses, no à la carte wandering allowed. This is a contemporary Japanese restaurant where the chef moves between raw fish and Angus beef with equal confidence, folding miso, truffle, and yuzu into the through-line. The room reads like a serious night out in Milan, dressed up but not stiff. A Michelin Guide selection, and ranked among Italy's top sushi spots by 50 Top Italy.

The Milanese trattoria that put tripe back on the map, bare tables and all. Offal is the north star here, from fried tripe to grilled marrow to horse tartare, though the butter and Parmesan tagliatelle has quietly become the dish regulars argue about most. The chef trained in Michelin-starred kitchens and then chose to do the opposite of what that implies. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a waiting list that confirms Milan has opinions about lunch.

A classic American bar format in a Milan neighborhood that doesn't get many tourists, Rita has been doing fresh, seasonal cocktails since before that phrase appeared on every drinks menu in the world. The team makes their own syrups and ingredients in-house, which was a minor act of rebellion when they started and now just reads as good practice. Europe's 50 Best Bars has it at number 49. The crowd is local, confident, and rarely consults the menu.

The wine list at this Piedmontese trattoria runs deep enough to occupy you before you've touched the menu. Chef Valentina Chiaramonte's kitchen leans into the region's more challenging cuts, offal and marrow alongside gentler seasonal vegetable dishes, so the table tends to split along predictable but happy lines. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the room fills early with locals who know not to leave it to chance.

The garden behind the restaurant supplies much of what lands on the table, and that short distance shows. Lo Stuzzichino is a family-run trattoria in the hills above the Amalfi Coast, where the cooking stays close to Campanian tradition: local seafood, free-range meat, and produce pulled from their own plot. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, with an extensive wine list that regulars take seriously. Foreign visitors fill the room most nights, and the family keeps everyone at ease.

Brick vaulting overhead and the bones of an old palazzo stable beneath your feet set the scene at this intimate osteria in Offida's pedestrianised centro storico. The chef reinterprets Marche's regional pantry with a light, precise hand, and the Michelin Guide has noted it with a Bib Gourmand. Cannelloni finished on the barbecue grill is the kind of detail that makes you stop mid-sentence and ask the waiter to repeat it.

The tables are close enough to smell the Adriatic, which turns out to be the point. Vecchia Marina is a no-frills seafood trattoria on the Roseto waterfront where the kitchen stays focused on whatever came off the boats that morning, served in straightforward traditional preparations. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place that books up fast precisely because it hasn't decided to be anything other than what it is.

Tables spill onto Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, one of the more beautiful squares Naples has to offer, which sets the tone for a pizzeria that runs with something close to full restaurant service. The menu moves through fried starters and salads before arriving at the pizzas, where Neapolitan tradition and contemporary ideas share the dough without much fuss. Ranked third in 50 Top Pizza Italy, and a Michelin Selected Restaurant.

Wholemeal flours and a long natural ferment give the dough at this San Bonifacio pizzeria a crust that shatters before giving way to something pillowy inside. The chef has been refining that balance for what feels like forever, and the toppings stretch well past margherita into fish and seasonal vegetables. It's the kind of pizza that makes you wonder why anyone settled for less, without quite saying so out loud.

Ciro Salvo, one of Naples' most celebrated pizza masters, named this place after the Neapolitan dream-book code for dough, which tells you exactly what to expect. It's a no-reservations Neapolitan pizza spot near the waterfront, so you leave your name and wait, which is just part of the deal. The pies are traditional, large, and built on the kind of soft, pillowy dough that makes the argument without any help.

A corner of Ragusa where breakfast slides into wine and cheese slides into dinner and nobody seems particularly eager to leave. This all-day Sicilian trattoria doubles as a shop stocked with the best of the Val di Noto, so you can eat the region and then take a bit of it home. The cooking leans into tradition with a light modern hand, and tasting menus run from a vegetarian four courses up to seven surprise dishes.

A large Travertine marble counter greets you at the door, and the dining room beyond sits beneath a skylight that turns midday into a minor event. This is a Roman trattoria with a serious focus on meat, particularly the offal cuts that the city has eaten forever: tripe, sweetbreads, oxtail in forms both traditional and quietly inventive. The chef's roots are in Testaccio, which is to Roman butchery what Bordeaux is to wine, and it shows.

A modern trattoria in the heart of Marsica where vegetables hold the center of the plate and fermentation shows up in careful, measured doses rather than as a statement. The room is spare and bright, the kind of place that earns its seriousness without announcing it. The cooking follows the season and the territory, and the flavors are clean in a way that suggests someone in the kitchen actually knows when to stop. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

The estate at Saiano raises the animals and works the land; what ends up on the table at this celebrated Romagna trattoria started there. The kitchen has been turning out green lasagna, piadina, and slow-braised country dishes for decades, with a chef who's become something of a local legend. The setting, inside a medieval village, leans theatrical in winter when the old theater rooms open up and the whole thing feels slightly unreal.

The fish parmigiana alone explains why this seafood restaurant on Corso Garibaldi draws a crowd. The kitchen works strictly with non-farmed catch from the Cilento coast, moving between raw preparations dressed with oils and aromatic salts and long-loved pasta dishes done with quiet confidence. The room is bright and unfussy, the service informal without being careless, and the wine list knows when to stop.

A cotoletta so thick it borders on a statement, this is a modern trattoria that takes Milanese cooking seriously without taking itself too seriously. Risotto alla milanese, ravioli, the classics are all here, restated with care rather than reinvented beyond recognition. The room is warm and unhurried, the kind of place where the service feels like it knows you even on a first visit. An extensive wine list keeps things moving.

Trout with celeriac purée prepared tataki-style is the dish that signals what kind of restaurant this is: a regional Trentino kitchen that quietly borrows from Korea and Japan without making a fuss about it. The menu shifts with the market, so the specials board does the most interesting work on any given night. Regional wines anchor the list. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this personal and unfussy.

The wood-fired stove has been running this country restaurant for generations, and nobody has seen much reason to change that. Set in the hilly Piedmontese countryside outside Cartosio, Cacciatori serves deeply local, seasonal cooking in the kind of room where the wine list skews toward serious Langhe verticals. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and guestrooms if you'd rather not navigate those hills after dinner.

Barrel-vaulted ceilings and a courtyard tucked under old stone porticoes set the scene at this Apulian trattoria in Ceglie Messapica's old town. The kitchen works through regional recipes with the kind of conviction that makes a menu hard to navigate quickly, in the best sense. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand. Book ahead; the locals already know about it, and they got there first.

Apulian trattoria that grew out of a family butcher shop and never really left those roots behind. Meat still anchors the menu, and the kitchen garden supplies vegetables that show up in a long procession of antipasti and fresh pasta. The wine cellar runs to over 300 labels, which is serious for a town this size. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and there's a small B&B next door if the meal stretches, as it tends to.

A family-run osteria in a small Lombard town that's been around forever, with a veranda, a home garden out back, and a menu that changes with the seasons. The cooking is old-school Lombardian, the kind where tongue with pickled vegetables and tripe with boiled meats sit comfortably alongside homemade tarts. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and the wine list leans heavily into Franciacorta. Book ahead.

Cherasco is famously snail country, and this welcoming osteria in the town's quiet historic centre leans into that without apology. It's a traditional Piedmontese dining room where the kitchen updates regional classics rather than dismantling them, and the friendly staff will walk you through the menu without making you feel like a tourist. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. The wine list runs deep, as you'd expect this close to Barolo.

The vitello tonnato here has a near-mythic reputation in Turin, which tells you something about the regulars. This is a trattoria in San Salvario, the neighborhood where artists and students share tables, and the menu moves from Piedmontese classics like tajarin and plin to the occasional taco with chimichurri without anyone raising an eyebrow. The wine list is considered and the lunch deal is gentle on the wallet. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Steps from the Lungomare in Bagnara Calabra, this intimate trattoria has been around forever and holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand for cooking that threads Calabrian and Greek flavors together without making a fuss about it. The chef's roots do the talking: squid stuffed with feta, swordfish prepared with care. Small room, warm room, the kind of place where you feel less like a customer than a guest someone actually wanted to show up.

Sit outside long enough in this tucked-away hamlet and you'll forget the city exists, which is probably the point. Trattoria Ai Due Platani is a Bib Gourmand trattoria rooted in Emilian cooking, the kind of place where the menu reads like the surrounding countryside. The kitchen stays traditional but lets a quiet creative streak surface in plating and flavor. Book ahead, because the province has already figured this one out.

The soft, stringy dough is the whole argument here, and Enzo Coccia has been making it in a residential neighborhood far from the tourist scrum for longer than most of Naples's celebrated pizzerias have been on anyone's list. Classic Neapolitan pizza, traditional and creative toppings, and a five-grain roll called the 'mpustarella that fills the fried-snack gap so neatly you barely notice there are no fritti. A pilgrimage pizzeria, in the best sense.

A Neapolitan pizza restaurant on the Riviera di Chiaia, a few steps from the waterfront and a world away from tourist-trap pies. The dough here is thin enough that you actually cut it, which in Naples is a quiet statement of intent. The team puts serious effort into sourcing oils and tomatoes, and it shows most clearly in the margherita. The wine list is thoughtful for a pizza place, which is either a nice surprise or exactly what you'd expect from this neighborhood.

Tucked down a side street under Bologna's porticoes, this trattoria treats Emilian cooking as a thing that doesn't need improving. Fresh pasta, cured meats, local wines, and a zuppa inglese with alchermes cake that closes the meal in the most unapologetic way. The room is small and warm, and it books out every day, so reserve before you assume good fortune is on your side.

The menu is handwritten and changes with whatever came in that morning, which tells you what kind of restaurant this is before you've sat down. A small, softly lit Tuscan trattoria in Milan, Autem runs on the chef's personal flair, from the open kitchen where he greets you to the table where he'll likely check in himself. The cooking is focused and unhurried, the kind that makes a short menu feel like a considered edit rather than a limitation.

A late 19th-century wooden door opens into a sequence of dining rooms furnished with mid-century antiques, which sets the slightly theatrical tone for what follows. This is a tasting-menu restaurant in a Lombardy village, where the chef runs two menus, one classical and one more experimental. The sommelier steers the wine pairings, with a particular eye for regional bottles that don't appear on every list.

A young chef cooking Ligurian to its bones, right at the tourist marina in a tiny clifftop village where the sea view alone makes the GPS confusion forgivable. This is a tasting-menu restaurant, though you can order à la carte, built around the region's produce: Albenga artichokes, Pigna beans, pine nuts, local seafood, and the foraged herb mix called prebugiun. Everything on the plate is an argument for staying in Liguria forever.

Olive groves and golden stone frame this countryside restaurant outside Noto, where the kitchen takes Sicilian land seriously enough to occasionally dress pigeon in Chanel red. The chef's cooking runs classical in its bones and contemporary in its execution, with local ingredients pulled into menus that feel like they have something to say. The dining room is small and bright, the windows face the countryside, and the wine cellar doubles as the morning breakfast room.

On the seventh floor of the Excelsior Hotel Gallia, with the central station rooftops spreading out below, Terrazza Gallia is a fine dining room where the kitchen leans Mediterranean and the Campanian chef's flavors run rich and direct. Fendi and Busnelli furnished the space, which tips from glamorous at lunch to genuinely cinematic at sunset. The wine list is impressive and priced to match the view.

A trattoria in Cerignola that grew out of a family delicatessen and never quite forgot it, so the pantry instincts run deep. The cooking is rooted in Apulian tradition, unfussy and ingredient-led, the kind of place where quality shows up in the simplicity rather than hiding behind it. The room has the warmth of somewhere that has been doing this for a long time and means it. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, gricia: the Roman canon, cooked straight, no editorializing. This Ostiense neighborhood trattoria has a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a reputation that now reaches well past its own streets, so book by phone or don't bother showing up. The room is simple and unhurried, the service genuinely warm in the way that can't be faked, and a handful of more creative dishes sit alongside the classics without disturbing them.

The dining room is a natural cave, which sets the tone before the food arrives. Forentum is a casual country-cooking restaurant in Lavello's historic center, with a terrace out front and Basilicata's pantry driving the menu, plus occasional seafood and, come evening, pizza in three distinct doughs. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the crowd seems largely local, which in a town this size is its own endorsement.

Trippa alla romana and fried brain share the menu with carbonara and amatriciana at this no-frills trattoria near the Vatican, where the pasta comes in a notably generous pour and the kitchen doesn't stray far from Lazio tradition. The room is simple to the point of looking accidental, which is precisely the point. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and locals who could walk here fill the seats alongside tourists who found it on purpose.

Tucked into a piazza between Campo de' Fiori and Piazza Navona, this old-school Roman trattoria has been around forever and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand doing it. The menu reads like a greatest-hits of the city: carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, meatballs. The room is rustic and always packed, because at this price and in this neighborhood, where else would you be.

A bistro overlooking the Sant'Ambrogio market, which sets the tone for everything on the plate. The room is spare and the cooking matches it, straightforward Tuscan with flashes of imagination, the kind of place where squab turns up in agnolotti and feels like a completely natural idea. The wine list leans regional and runs across price points without making a fuss about it. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a small terrace for when Florence cooperates with the weather.

Counter seating on tall stools runs the length of the room, sushi-bar style, which makes for an odd first impression in the Oltrarno. The food, though, is straightforwardly Tuscan: a blackboard menu of ribollita, peposo, and pici that shifts with the season and whatever the chef feels like that day. No reservations at lunch, which keeps things lively. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

A few steps from Piazza Navona, this small contemporary Italian restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a menu that can't quite decide if it's in Rome or somewhere more adventurous, which turns out to be the point. Oxtail alla vaccinara shows up stuffed into dumplings; a yucca mooncake arrives shortly after. Seats are few, reservations are smart, and the small-plates section gives you an easy excuse to order more than you planned.

The cows, horses, and pigs outside are not decorative; they end up on the plate, as charcuterie, braised stews, and cheese dumplings made with the farm's own production. This agriturismo above Moena is the working-farm-restaurant in full Alpine earnest, with antique wood furnishings and a brazier anchoring the dining room. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this straightforwardly good at what it does.

The owner roams the dining room steering guests toward bottles from a display generous enough to get lost in, which sets the tone for this old-school Lombardian trattoria in a small hilltop town above the lake. The kitchen runs deep into Bergamo tradition, from house-made casoncelli to braised beef and roast rabbit with Rovetta polenta. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place where one visit rarely feels like enough.

A fogolar fireplace, the open hearth that defines old Friulian homes, crackles in the most intimate of the dining rooms here, spreading the smell of embers through the stonework. This is a regional trattoria in the old town of Cividale, where goose shows up as a staple rather than an occasion, and the cooking is confident enough not to explain itself. A courtyard opens on sunny days. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

The stone fireplace connecting the two dining rooms does double duty in winter, and the garden takes over when it warms up. This family-run trattoria in a quiet Friulian village keeps a seasonal menu rooted in the region, with grilled meats doing most of the heavy lifting. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place where the cooking is careful and the bill stays reasonable.

Truffles put this quiet hilltop town on Sicily's map almost as surely as the Baroque churches did, and this homey trattoria leans into that fact without apology. The kitchen runs on homemade bread, hand-rolled pastas, and local cheeses, with palazzolese sausage and black piglet rounding out a menu that reads like a love letter to the Monti Iblei. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place where the hospitality feels completely unrehearsed.

Five generations of women have kept this inn on the Altopiano del Salto plateau running, which gives the kitchen a confidence that no restaurant group can manufacture. It's a traditional South Tyrolean trattoria, the kind where home-produced ingredients and generous portions are the whole argument. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and you can borrow a Haflinger horse afterward, which is not something many restaurants can offer.

A Tuscan trattoria that's been around forever, set in a village outside Lucca where the owners also run the organic farm supplying the kitchen with wine, olive oil, and vinegar. The cooking follows peasant tradition closely, grilled meats doing most of the heavy lifting. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand. Outdoor tables in the village square go fast, so book ahead if you want to sit outside pretending you live here.

The dining room hides behind the village bar in a small building on the square, and in winter the fireplace fills it with woodsmoke before the food even arrives. This is a traditional Friulian trattoria where the kitchen follows the seasons closely, alternating between fish and the kind of hearty regional cooking, duck ragout on tagliatelle, frico with polenta, that locals would riot to protect. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A family trattoria on the main street of a small medieval village, unswayed by trends and holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand. In warmer months, tables spill outside onto the street. The menu is rigorously Tuscan: crostini, ribollita, hand-rolled pici, braised beef, and when the season calls for it, wild boar stew. The kind of place where the cooking changes with the calendar and the village regulars eat like it's Tuesday, because it is.

The road up to this family-run trattoria winds through vines and orchards before hitting woodland at 900 meters, where the Dolomites spread out below like a postcard nobody bothered to send you. Three generations of the Geiser family have been feeding the valley on seasonal Alto Adige cooking, potato rösti, baked pumpkin, porcini cream, homemade tarts. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this quietly sure of itself.

The squid soup with nduja and potato mousse is the dish the kitchen wants you to order, and it's a reasonable suggestion. This casual seafood bistro is the more affordable sibling of a smarter restaurant on Salerno's waterfront, same team and same obsession with freshness, just oily fish and local white prawns instead of oysters. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks: it's the kind of place that punches past its price point without making a fuss about it.

Cjarsons, the local ravioli whose filling shifts with whatever the season hands the kitchen, are a good reason to find yourself in this small family trattoria in the Carnia mountains. The team cooks from a deep Friulian tradition, with vegetables from their own organic garden doing quiet work in the background. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this unfussy and this specific about where things come from.

A cluster of trulli beside a small vineyard sets the scene at this rustic trattoria tucked behind a relais outside Martina Franca. The kitchen leans into Apulian tradition, with wood-fired cooking and a menu that shifts with whatever the market offers that week. The same team behind a nearby gourmet spot runs the stoves here, though the register is looser and the food earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A road separates Burro & Alici from the beach, and in summer the windows fold open so the dining room becomes the seafront. It looks like every other casual fish restaurant along the Marotta waterfront, which is the sort of camouflage that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Classic Adriatic cooking carries the menu, with the occasional personal twist, and the gourmet pizzas topped with seafood are the kind of thing you didn't expect to order and then do.

A small, discreet door off a quiet street in central Ferrara opens into two simply furnished rooms where the cooking is all Emilian: hand-rolled pasta, tortelli in butter and Parmigiano, tagliatelle with prosciutto ragù. The tenerina, a fudgy local chocolate cake, arrives with a glass of mascarpone cream. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a neighborhood trattoria where the food does the talking and nobody's performing for you.

A trattoria that has been anchored to a Renaissance square since what feels like forever, its interiors a pleasing jumble of Art Nouveau curves and mid-century odds and ends. The kitchen works the Po Valley's greatest hits: stuffed marubini in broth, culatello, boiled meats with house-made mostarda. Earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for exactly this kind of unfussy regional cooking done with care. A small shop sells provisions for the ride home.

An old painted sign still marks the façade of this trattoria tucked among chestnut trees and tufa outcroppings outside the village. The cooking is rooted Piedmontese, the kind that hasn't chased trends, and the Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand for the trouble. A terrace opens in warm weather, an early twentieth-century cellar sits below, and in winter a fireplace does exactly what a fireplace should.

A seventeenth-century palazzo in a small Trentino hill town, with mountain views on clear days and a cellar stocked with nearly every producer in the Vallagarina valley. The daily tasting menu shifts with the season and the kitchen garden, though you can pick just a few courses if commitment feels like too much. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of regional wine list that makes ordering by the glass a long and pleasant exercise.

The terrace here looks out over the green hills above Lake Maggiore, and on a clear day it's hard to concentrate on the menu. This old-school Piedmontese trattoria has been around forever, and the room feels it, in the best way: homey, unhurried, and run with obvious conviction. The kitchen roams the whole Italian peninsula, seafood included, but the local and regional dishes are where it settles. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Dinner in a palazzo's old stables, the vaulted ceiling doing most of the decorating. Clemente is a trattoria in the center of Sulmona that keeps its focus strictly on Abruzzo, meaning chitarra pasta made in-house, saffron from Aquila, and mains built entirely around meat. Portions run large, and half-portions are available if you'd like to order more things. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. Aperitifs happen in a bistro-style side room, which is a civilized arrangement.