The Best Places in Italy

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.

The carrello dei bolliti, a trolley of boiled meats wheeled to your table, sets the register immediately: this is old-school Piedmontese dining in a warren of small wood-ceilinged rooms hung with vintage photos. Handmade pasta and a rabbit stew piled with Carmagnola peppers anchor the menu. In summer the garden fills up, all green plants and good intentions. Somewhere your grandmother would nod approvingly, assuming she was from Cavour.

A 180-hectare biodynamic farm outside Gavi, producing much of what lands on the table, is a pretty good argument for eating where you sleep. This restaurant on the La Raia estate serves contemporary Piedmontese cooking rooted in local tradition, with tasting menus that follow the property's own wines from Gavi to Langhe. Organic, art-forward, and quietly serious, it's the kind of dinner that makes ordering off a regular menu feel lazy.

An old mill on the hills above Garda, its stone walls softened into a warm dining room, with a terrace that catches the southern stretch of the lake. This is a contemporary Mediterranean restaurant where the kitchen starts with local freshwater fish and then roams freely toward the sea and inland. The chef's mille-feuille has its own reputation, and the wasabi-dressed seafood salad is lighter than it has any right to be.

A beach club restaurant on the Sicilian coast where the loungers and umbrellas are part of the deal, and in summer the windows fold back so the whole room becomes a terrace. The kitchen follows the lead of multi-starred chef Perbellini, reworking Sicilian flavors, seafood and otherwise, with a modern hand. The vegetarian dishes get the same serious attention as everything else, which is not always a given at the seaside.

A country inn in the Alpago hills where the lamb on your plate was raised on the family's own farm nearby. The kitchen leans into the Venetian seasons, keeping things classic with just enough modern instinct to feel considered rather than dusty. When the weather cooperates, the terrace catches the sunset over the valley in a way that makes it hard to leave. An old-school family operation, the women of the house having kept it going for generations.

A country restaurant in the Piacenza hills where the grill does most of the talking, filling the outdoor dining terrace with smoke and the smell of something good. The menu moves between land, sea, and garden, with a tasting menu built around live fire or à la carte if you'd rather wander. A couple of suites and a wellness center mean you can stay, which, given the Zen garden and the view, seems like the obvious move.

The fish bao that opens the menu, a soft steamed bun served alongside empanadas filled with smoked cheese and shrimp, signals that this contemporary Italian restaurant in a small Bergamo-area town is doing something more roaming than the address suggests. Pastas and risottos anchor the middle, and Bergamo lamb brings it home before gelato closes things out. The handcrafted furniture is its own conversation starter, but the kitchen tends to win.

A contemporary dining room perched at the Sant'Erasmo belvedere, with the Adriatic and Monte Conero laid out below in summer. The chef leans into the sea for inspiration, building creative dishes around combinations that don't follow the obvious path. Two tasting menus, or à la carte if you'd rather call the shots yourself. Book ahead; the view is not a secret.

A contemporary Sicilian restaurant tucked into a low-rise resort on a quiet country road outside Modica, where the chef runs the room alongside his wife and his sommelier sister-in-law, which is either a family business or a workplace sitcom depending on the evening. The menu leans into imaginative meat and fish combinations, with tasting menus alongside à la carte. The wine list ventures well beyond Sicily, with a particular pull toward French labels and champagne.

A family trattoria in Cogne with a name that translates, in local dialect, as "the night snack," which tells you something about the spirit of the place. The cooking is rooted in Aosta Valley tradition: hearty soups, tripe with borlotti beans, polenta, the kind of food that makes sense after a day in the mountains. A historic taverna sits downstairs, a dining room above, and a handful of guestrooms for those who'd rather not leave.