The Best Places in Italy

The supplì here come filled with cacio e pepe, amatriciana, and carbonara, which tells you everything about the kitchen's loyalties. This is a casual Roman street food counter tucked into the old alleys between Regola and Ponte, with a Chesterfield sofa, walls covered in scrawl, and a couple of outdoor benches. The fried rice balls are the whole point, though the mozzarella in carrozza keeps people honest about ordering more than one thing.

The name means "journey," and the kitchen leans into that, blending sushi with pan-Asian touches and cooked Japanese dishes in a restaurant that's been a Naples reference point since its earlier days on Cappella Vecchia. The menu is ambitious enough to reward the curious, though the crowd's pull toward familiar sushi selections is real. Let the team guide you through the tasting progression instead, and the place becomes something else entirely. Ranked third on 50 Top Italy's sushi list.

Three hundred and twenty hectares of Umbrian estate produce nearly everything on the plate at this countryside restaurant outside Gubbio. The game roams a wildlife reserve on the property; the cured meats are made in-house; the herbs come from the woods just outside. A seven-course tasting menu threads it all into something with a strong sense of place. The wine list is long, and the owner is happy to steer you through it.

The name is the capacity: 28 seats in a quietly serious modern restaurant on Via Corsico. The kitchen buys from small producers, uses every scrap of what comes in, and has run that way long enough that it feels like conviction rather than a trend. The current chefs bring central Italian roots and Abruzzi instincts to the menu, which shifts with the season. The room is small enough that the team tends to know who ordered what without checking.

The lacquered bento box is both the premise and the personality here. Yoji Tokuyoshi, once Massimo Bottura's sous-chef at Osteria Francescana, pivoted from fine dining to a format rooted in his mother's packed lunches, and the result is a casual restaurant where Japanese and Mediterranean impulses share the compartments. The cooking is precise without being stiff, and the room feels like a chef genuinely having a better time than before.

Fresh pasta rolls out of a tiny kitchen visible right by the door, which sets the tone at this old-school Roman trattoria devoted entirely to the cooking of Emilia-Romagna. Salumi, tagliatelle with ragù, and a refrigerated case of desserts at the back make the menu feel like a polite argument for why you should have stayed north. Been around forever, and the regulars eat like they know it.

Two architects and two bookshop owners walked into a kitchen, which sounds like the start of a joke but produced one of the more interesting casual restaurants in Florence. Tuscan classics get nudged sideways here, cabbage braised with cumin, duck lasagna, sausages on sourdough with sweet-sour figs, all grounded in local and seasonal sourcing. Natural wines, fresh seafood, and a menu that changes with what's good.

Soft lighting, a soundtrack turned up just enough, and a crowd that dressed for it: Langosteria is a sleek seafood restaurant on via Savona that Milan has made very much its own. The menu leans classic without being predictable, and the raw fish selection shifts daily with the market. The wine list runs deep into serious labels, which fits the room. Bring someone you're trying to impress, or at least someone who won't flinch at the bill.

A neighborhood trattoria in Centocelle, the kind of eastern Rome district tourists rarely bother with, Menabò tours Italian regional cooking with a light, seasonal hand. Pasta alla gricia gets figs or grapes folded in; rigatoni arrives braised Neapolitan-style. The wine list leans natural and traditional, because the name is half promise. Locals who know their producers fill the room.

The building spent past lives as a cinema and a tram depot before becoming this Italian restaurant across from the Bosco Verticale towers. Counter seats and a terrace over the park give you options. The cooking leans into Milanese classics without getting museum-y about it, and at lunch they call the quick meal "schiscèta," the dialect word for a packed lunch, which tells you something about the room's sense of humor.

A counter where the kitchen plays out in front of you sets the tone at this Milan bistro, where grilled meat, fish, and vegetables get finished in plain sight. The menu is classic Italian, anchored by daily specials that shift with what's good, and the wine list runs deep enough to keep things interesting by the glass. The room is relaxed and sociable in the way that only a place that has clearly figured itself out tends to be.

The spaghetti with tuna and bottarga has a name, taratatà, which tells you something about how seriously Sicily is taken here. Giano is a hotel restaurant inside the W near Via Veneto that shifts register through the day, casual at lunch and more considered at dinner, with a kitchen shaped by the influence of Ciccio Sultano of the two-starred Duomo in Ragusa. Cannolo gets a prickly pear consommé; caponata stays caponata.

The dry-ageing chambers are visible from the dining room, which tells you exactly what kind of place La Braseria is before anyone hands you a menu. This meat-focused restaurant near Bergamo sources Italian breeds and in-house ages the beef before it meets a wood and charcoal grill. Warm stone, low light, and a team that knows the wine list cold. It ranked 39th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, if that helps calibrate the occasion.

The Antinori estate slides into the Chianti hillside so quietly you could almost miss it, which is the point. This is a winery visit with architecture, a museum, and a restaurant attached, all belonging to a family that has been growing grapes here for 26 generations. The gravitational winemaking facility and rotating exhibitions give you something to look at between glasses, and the kitchen turns local produce into food polished enough to hold its own against the wine.

The barrels here have been stacked in the same vaulted cellars since before Sicily was part of Italy, and the architecture makes a decent argument on its own. Donnafugata's Marsala winery runs guided visits through its cellars and production spaces, pairing the tour with tastings of the estate's wines alongside Sicilian bites. It's the kind of afternoon that starts as education and quietly becomes a long, pleasant sit.

Irpinia has been growing grapes since Pliny wrote it down, and the hills around Sorbo Serpico still carry that feeling of a landscape that knows what it's doing. Feudi di San Gregorio is a wine estate worth making a day of, set among vineyards, olive groves, and hazel trees with the Apennines keeping watch. Medieval villages, old castles, and volcanic mud fields fill out the surroundings, and the airport is only half an hour away.

The cellars here tunnel beneath a royal hunting estate, which tells you something about the scale of Fontanafredda's ambitions. This sprawling Langhe winery is best known for its Barolo, and visitors can walk the biodynamic vineyards, poke around the historic cellars, and work through tastings that lean heavily on Nebbiolo. It's the kind of place that takes most of an afternoon, which Piedmont generally rewards.

Masi built its name on appassimento, the practice of drying harvested grapes to concentrate their sugars before fermentation, and Amarone della Valpolicella is the result. This is a winery visit in classic Veneto countryside, where the family operation runs single-vineyard estates and welcomes guests to explore them. The Foresteria Serego Alighieri, owned by descendants of Dante himself, offers apartments among the vines for anyone who'd like to stay.

A Palladian palace with an 18th-century barrel cellar underneath it is a good argument for rearranging your itinerary. Villa Sandi offers winery visits and tastings, including one by candlelight if you want to feel appropriately dramatic about Prosecco. Tours move through the cellar galleries where the estate's still and sparkling wines are aging, and masterclasses cover everything from winemaking to dining etiquette, which is a wide brief.

The tenth floor is the whole argument: Cecconi's wraps you in a 360-degree panorama of Rome while serving Italian classics to a crowd that came for cocktails and stayed for dinner. As a place to stay, it leans on the Soho House formula of muted tones, terrazzo floors, and locally made wall hangings, which manages to feel warm rather than branded. The Discovery list from The 50 gives it a nod.

A neon sign reading "In pizza we trust" greets you inside this Roman pizza restaurant tucked between Porta Portese and Trastevere. The airy, ethereal crust is the foundation everything else is built on, from precise fried starters through to the desserts, with a serious wine list running alongside. It holds a spot on 50 Top Pizza World and took the Pizza dell'Anno award for 2026.

A hydroponic farm and a personal vegetable garden feed the kitchen at this Caserta pizzeria, where Ciccio Vitiello's biga-based doughs turn out light, well-calibrated pizzas that lean heavily on Campanian produce. The menu balances classic reinterpretations with genuinely odd detours, including a pizza theatrically served at the pass. It holds a spot on 50 Top Pizza Italy. The dining room mixes art and design with a Mediterranean garden out back.

The soundproofed dining room is a deliberate choice: this is a pizza destination serious enough that you're meant to hear your table talk. Sasà Martucci runs a contemporary Neapolitan pizzeria in Caserta built around seasonal produce, short supply chains, and doughs that come classic, pan-fried, or triple-cooked. The Mangiafoglia, tied to a certified tree planting, is a signature worth ordering on principle. Ranked ninth in 50 Top Pizza Italy.

The open oven is the first thing you clock at this enopizzeria in Parioli, where the chef returned from Vienna with strong opinions about dough. The Neapolitan tradition is the starting point, not the destination, and the result is a crust that manages to feel both serious and light. Reservations run by time slot with the precision of a rail timetable, and the room fills on weekdays without effort. Ranked sixth on 50 Top Pizza Italy.

A vegan bistro where the kitchen produces something close to spaghetti alle vongole without a single clam in sight, coaxing the texture and flavor from an emulsion of pea water and vegetable fat. The rest of the menu runs the same way: fondues, lasagnas, and ravioli built on plant-based cheeses rather than dairy. The room is welcoming and the service is sharp, which helps when you're asking diners to set aside a lifetime of Neapolitan culinary assumptions.

Tiramisu arrives in a baking dish, served tableside the way it would be at home, and that tells you most of what you need to know about Botteghe Antiche. It's a country trattoria in Putignano, all checkered tablecloths and hanging pots, built around Apulian cooking that leans hard into Sunday-lunch memory: eggplant parmigiana, fresh orecchiette, slow ragu. The room smells accordingly. It landed on 50 Top Italy's list of modern trattorias and bistros.

A wood-fired grill anchors the menu at this spacious modern trattoria on the Caracciolo waterfront, where the kitchen leans hard into Campanian tradition without feeling like a museum piece. Pasta dishes carry the kind of weight and precision that make you slow down, and the grilled meat and local fish share equal billing. A garden and an adjacent cocktail bar mean there's no real reason to leave in a hurry, which is probably the point.

A family-run trattoria in central Palermo where the menu reads like a love letter to Sicilian seafood, kept short enough that the kitchen means every word of it. The sons came back from abroad, which tends to focus a kitchen's attention. The wine list reaches past Sicily with what regulars describe as fair pricing, which is the part people always mention first. Ranked 25th on 50 Top Italy's modern trattoria list.

A Neapolitan pizza shop that covers every format, classic round, pan, on a peel, fried, all under one roof and all taken seriously. The dough changes with each iteration, toppings pull from Campanian producers, and the fried section holds its own alongside the rest. Ready-to-drink cocktails pair better than you'd expect. Diego Vitagliano's pizzeria sits at number four on 50 Top Pizza World, which in Naples is saying something.

A small sushi spot a short walk from Benevento's center that has quietly become a reference point for sushi lovers across Campania. Seating is tight, the menu is long, and the chef has the kind of personality that fills both gaps. He'll steer you through a tasting sequence with evident enthusiasm. The wine list throws in some champagne and natural bottles alongside Japanese beer and sake, which is not what you expect in this corner of southern Italy.

The daily menu goes up on a blackboard, the appetizers come from a buffet, and the family running the place has been doing it this way for generations. La Piccola Amatrice is an old-school Roman trattoria where the owners actually hail from Amatrice, which means the spaghetti all'amatriciana is taken personally. Portions are generous, prices are low, and nobody is performing anything for anyone.

A pastry shop in Maddaloni that has been turning out Campanian classics long enough to have earned an old-school following, and whose babà, ranked among Italy's finest by 50 Top Italy, come in sizes from single-serve to savarin, soaked properly and finished with custard and fresh fruit if you like. The pastiera and caprese are Sunday-tray staples, and the festive leavened breads are worth planning a visit around.

There is no printed menu at this trattoria in the hill town of Acuto; there is Salvatore, who runs the room and tells you what's happening that day. The kitchen leans into local game and the olive oils alone smell worth the detour, with a licorice edge that catches you off guard. Dishes shift constantly, which keeps the regulars guessing alongside first-timers. Ranked among Italy's top modern trattorias by 50 Top Italy.

An old mill inn that fed flour-dusted workers is now a contemporary trattoria where the pasta e fagioli that made the place famous still appears alongside lacquered amberjack and grilled duck with hoisin. The self-taught chef running the room absorbed Japanese technique through travel and collaboration, and it shows in the quietly surprising combinations. Unhurried and genuinely warm, it draws the kind of Venetian mainland crowd that books ahead and orders everything.

Tucked into the arcades of Sottoripa, a short walk from the Porto Antico bustle, this casual sandwich and fried-food counter also runs a fish-forward cocktail menu sized for aperitivo hour, with the raw and poke options changing on whatever came in that day. It landed at number ten on 50 Top Italy's best sandwiches list, which is a good reason to stand in line. The team is young and moves fast, so you won't be there long unless you want to be.

A small gourmet restaurant tucked into a romantic alley near Lake Iseo, where the menu changes daily depending on what comes from the market, the lake, the garden, or the surrounding woods. The chef trained alongside some of Franciacorta's most respected names, and the cooking reflects it: territory-driven, waste-conscious, and genuinely demanding. His partner runs the floor and the cellar, which leans toward small natural producers from the region.

A former boarding school on the northern hillside above Florence, converted into a five-star resort with enough restraint that the frescoes and coffered ceilings stayed put. Original classrooms are now suites with hand-painted walls, stone bathrooms, and small wine cellars, all looking out over the Duomo from a comfortable distance. The Auberge Collection's Italian debut landed a spot on The 50 Discovery list.

Twelve suites inside a centuries-old palazzo that has never left the founding family's hands, which is either a remarkable preservation story or a very long estate dispute, probably both. The rooms range from frescoed ceilings edged in gold to a suite with its own gilded chapel. Boutique hotel barely covers it. Named a Discovery by The 50, it sits on one of Genoa's grandest streets and sleeps like a private museum that finally let you in.

A pizza restaurant in Caserta where the menu moves from fried starters, crispy and precisely formed, into contemporary artisanal pizzas rooted in Campania's larder. The chef brings a restrained, almost tailoring approach to the whole meal, desserts included, and the dining room follows suit: attentive without hovering. Ranked among Italy's top fifteen pizza spots by 50 Top Pizza, which in this country is saying something.

A Calabrian pizzeria that closes out the meal with a pizza based on pitta 'mpigliata, a regional Christmas pastry, which tells you exactly how seriously the team takes the full arc of a visit. Six people work the ovens with the kind of precision that makes you feel like you should be quieter. Reservations are genuinely hard to come by. It ranks in the 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World lists, and the dessert menu won a 50 Top Pizza special award.

A contemporary pizzeria in Pistoia that ranks in the 50 Top Pizza Italy and World lists, La Fenice takes the wood-fired pie seriously enough that the dough rests for a day and a half before it ever sees a flame. The menu wanders pleasantly beyond pizza into fusion appetizers and airy bites the chef calls his signature work. Staff know the beer and wine list cold and will steer you without making you feel tested.

A rooftop pool with the Dolomite peaks arranged around it like they know what they're doing sets the tone at this 14-suite boutique hotel in Castelbello. South Tyrol practically invented this genre of grown-up mountain retreat, and Amaril fits the template with natural materials, a proper spa, and a no-guests-under-14 rule that keeps things quiet. Apartments come with kitchenettes if you're settling in for a while.

A farmhouse-style pizzeria outside Brescia where the dough comes from the Pappalardo tradition and the menu runs from a solid margherita to pizzas topped with freshwater fish from the local lakes. Roman-style slices sit alongside full pies and tasting portions, so you can cover a lot of ground in one sitting. The staff knows the menu cold and moves with it. Ranked in the 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World lists.

A pizza shop in central Turin where the dough is the obsession, not an afterthought. The menu roams well beyond the classic round, into crispy, pala, and a bun-style format called pizz'otto, each style treated as its own argument. Vitello tonnato reworked as a pizza topping captures the spirit of the place pretty well. Ranked in the top fifteen on 50 Top Pizza Italy, which tracks for a room this focused on fermentation.

Roman pizza gets very serious about its crust, and 180 Grammi is where that argument is made most crisply, in a renovated room in Centocelle that feels more like a restaurant than a slice shop. The thin, crackling edge is the whole point, and the menu shifts with the seasons so regulars have a reason to keep coming back. Ranked on both 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World, it also does fried starters and desserts that people actually finish.

A garden pizzeria off the A12 autostrada, which sounds like a backhanded compliment until you're sitting under the greenery with a wood-fired pie in front of you. The crust is the point here, crisp and substantial enough to hold its own, and the menu splits neatly between classic and creative without chasing whatever's fashionable this season. Desserts come from a separate, clearly capable hand. It ranks on both 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World.

Piazza Mercato sits well outside Naples' tourist drag, which is exactly why the locals are already three slices ahead of you at Bro. It's a pizza restaurant run by two brothers whose dough is soft and light but still generous in the old Neapolitan tradition. The fried starters are worth the visit on their own. The room is modern and comfortable, and the beer and Campanian wine list keeps pace with the food.

A pizza restaurant in Fiumicino where the counter is the show, five different doughs rolled Roman-style and slid into a wood-fired oven while you watch. The chef Luca Pezzetta works with seafood pulled from nearby boats, and the fried starters are worth arriving hungry for. Thin, well-cooked pies with serious toppings, a wine list that rewards the curious, and a room lively enough that "pizza place" undersells it a little. It ranks on both 50 Top Pizza Italy and the World list.

A pizzeria outside Naples where the menu crosses from classic Neapolitan rounds to pan-fried and double-cooked pies without the kitchen losing its thread. The dough is handled in its own way, high-rimmed and distinctive, and the vegan options are thought through rather than tacked on. The wine list and a surprisingly deep water menu suggest someone here takes the full meal seriously. It ranks on both 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World.

Seven distinct doughs is the number to know before you arrive at this modern Neapolitan pizza restaurant outside Naples in Casoria, reachable by car with parking right there. The De Maria brothers run the room, moving from fried starters through pan, paddle, and wood-fired rounds with an almost obsessive attention to flour and fermentation. Ranked in 50 Top Pizza Italy and 50 Top Pizza World, the wine and beer list gets the same care as everything else.

A pizza shop set along Faenza's old city walls, with a following that stretches across Emilia Romagna and into Milan and Bologna. The doughs use organic Italian flours and long leavening, cooked in a wood-fired oven, and the menu walks you through a selection of extra virgin olive oils to pair with your slice. The room is informal and contemporary, the service moves, and the regulars already know exactly what they're ordering. Ranked 25th in Italy by 50 Top Pizza.

An old-school trattoria tucked into the Euganean Hills, Ballotta has been around forever and shows no signs of getting tired of it. The kitchen leans into the land and the season, peasant cooking given a quiet, unfussy polish. The wine list follows the same logic: local, considered, no showboating. A family still runs the place, which you feel in the room before anyone says a word.

The black pigs here roam free in the Nebrodi Mountains, and eventually they end up on the table, which is the whole point. Fattoria Borrello is a family-run farm trattoria where one generation raises the animals and tends the garden while another cooks and pours. The menu shifts with the seasons and leans hard on house-cured meats and cheeses, with pasta rounding things out. Deeply unhurried, deeply Sicilian.

The homepage opens with four words: "Beauty, Origin, Vision, Evolution." It's a lot to put on a pizza, but this Campanian pizzeria, renamed for its chef after years under another name, earns the weight. The kitchen runs with a visible oven and a menu that moves from the great Neapolitan classics through fried starters and montanare to more personal, territory-driven pies. Ranked 16th on 50 Top Pizza Italy, it draws the kind of guests who come back.

Homemade pasta rolled out every morning sets the tempo at this old-school trattoria in Taranto, where the menu leans heavily toward the land rather than the sea. Antonio works the room while his sisters cook, and the move is to skip the printed menu entirely and let him narrate whatever came in that day. Regulars know this and order nothing; newcomers figure it out fast. A place where the informality is the whole point.

A beach club on Lake Orta pulls the first look, but the dining room at this fine-dining restaurant inside a boutique hotel is what keeps people talking. The kitchen runs under Antonino Cannavacciuolo's direction, and the menu moves between à la carte and tasting options, with pasta and secondi that lean into Campanian instincts filtered through northern Italian restraint. The crowd arrived for a weekend and quietly rebooked.

The garden isn't decoration here; it runs across several terraced levels and supplies much of what arrives on the plate. This is a fine dining restaurant on the hills above the Sorrento Coast, where the kitchen cooks Campanian cuisine with a personal point of view rather than a reverential one. Antonino Cannavacciuolo's vision behind the project, and the room carries that particular mixture of genuine quiet and considered comfort that tends to make lunch stretch.

Dario Cecchini, the butcher-philosopher of Panzano who once staged his own funeral to protest EU meat regulations, runs this fixed-menu steak restaurant where the experience begins outside, with Cecchini himself wishing every table bon appétit. The meat arrives cooked to medium rare, no negotiations, and the sides are fresh and well-considered. Hours are fixed, the cost is fixed, and the only real variable is how quickly you make friends with whoever's sitting next to you.

Two brothers named their restaurant after their mother, which sets the tone before you've even sat down. Olimpia is a modern trattoria in a renovated old building in the hamlet of Brufa, where one brother runs the kitchen with a sure hand on Umbrian ingredients and the other manages the room with the kind of warmth that actually feels earned. The menu leans into vegetables in a region better known for meat, which is its own quiet statement.

A basket of polenta taragna and salami arrives before you've even opened the menu, which tells you everything about how this trattoria in the Trentino hills operates. The kitchen leans into the region with carne salada, marinated trout, and housemade pasta, and the rabbit with polenta has a way of making you forget you ordered anything else. Portions are generous, the wine list is well chosen, and the whole thing costs less than you'd expect.

Mormanno lentils have been simmering in this kitchen long enough to become a local shorthand for the town itself. Osteria del Vicolo is a family-run trattoria tucked into the old village center, where one generation cooks a deeply Calabrian peasant tradition and another works the room with the warmth of someone who knows every story behind every dish. The room is small and unhurried, and the ingredients rarely travel far.

Inside the Galleria Principe di Napoli, Marco Ambrosino runs a fine dining restaurant built around what he calls a Mediterranean collective, a project that treats the region as a living, shifting thing rather than a postcard. A broth refreshed daily for years anchors a menu that otherwise refuses to hold still, pulling flavors from wherever curiosity leads. Comfort-seekers may find it unsettling; everyone else will find it hard to leave.

A rural trattoria outside Potenza where the farm supplies the cheese and the menu reads like a plea for Sunday to last a little longer. The kitchen recovers old Basilicata recipes without fuss or theater, so the lamb comes marinated and slow-baked the way it always has, and the pasta dough is still made by hand. A small cellar leans local. The room is calm in a way that feels intentional rather than sleepy.

Exposed stone walls and soft lighting set the mood at this rustic trattoria tucked into Campobasso's historic center, where the menu reads like a quiet argument for Molisan cooking. The kitchen skips traditional appetizers entirely and goes straight to spaghetti with cauliflower, lamb, and rabbit done in the porchetta style. Homemade tarts close things out. Informal service, affordable prices, and no frills beyond the food itself.

An aromatic-herb tasting menu sitting alongside a meat-focused one is an unusual way to organize a fine-dining restaurant, and it tells you something about how the chef here thinks. Eugenio Boer's creative Italian cooking leans hard on small producers and classic dishes, then quietly dismantles both in the same bite. The à la carte keeps things flexible for anyone not committing to a full menu.

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.