The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Italy

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.

A family-run seafood restaurant in the shadow of the shipyards, in the old Panzano district that was purpose-built to house the workers who built the ships. The room is simple and the portions are generous, in the way that places run by families for a long time tend to be. The menu leans classic fish and seafood, and if you're feeling ambitious, there's a video on hand explaining how to make seafood risotto at home.

Wood-paneled walls and a meat-heavy menu set Ai Gondolieri apart in a city where every other trattoria defaults to fish. Tucked just behind the Guggenheim in Dorsoduro, this rustic restaurant leans into traditional Venetian cooking: braised lamb, cured hams, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and a wine cellar stocked deep enough to keep you from ever looking at the cocktail list, though that's apparently substantial too.

The dining room is a 17th-century olive oil press, stone mill and wooden press still in place under vaulted ceilings in a medieval village that looks like it was designed by a tourism board. The restaurant leans into its setting with Ligurian seafood given an imaginative push, the catch of the day landing in an Italian-style ceviche, local ingredients doing most of the talking. The simpler bistro around the corner, I Torchietti, is run by the same team if you want a lighter commitment.

The saffron risotto with ossobuco reduction is the calling card here, carried over from the parent fine-dining restaurant down the block into something looser and more approachable. This is a contemporary Italian bistro where shareable plates of gnocco fritto and the house mondeghili meatballs are designed to be paired with cocktails built specifically around the menu. Milan at its most quietly self-assured.

The ground-floor restaurant inside the W Florence runs on pulsing music and a metropolitan buzz that feels more Tokyo-by-way-of-LA than Tuscany. Akira Back is the chef's Italian debut, and the kitchen plays with Korean, Japanese, and American flavors in a way that's loose and a little theatrical. Cocktails are the natural pairing here, and the bar leans into that obligation happily.

The wine list runs to over 2,000 labels, which is less a list and more a library. Al Carroponte is a contemporary Italian restaurant in Bergamo where the cellar is the point of pride, though the kitchen holds its own with a menu that moves between lobster and caviar and a generous spread of cured hams, cheeses, and finger food. The room buzzes, the crowd lingers, and the owner's obsession with wine gives the whole place its particular energy.

A hidden lift behind the arcades of Piazza Cavour whisks you up to a first-floor dining room where the wallpaper is as colorful as the cooking. This contemporary Italian restaurant pairs an inventive, carefully plated menu with a serious Franciacorta-focused wine list and, come evening, cocktails from the bar downstairs. The chef moves fluently between meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes, and half portions let you cover more ground without consequence.

Dinner in a botanical garden with a tiny vegetable patch growing a few feet from your table sets the tone at this hotel restaurant inside Palazzo Murat. The Attanasio family runs it, and the Mediterranean menu swings between meat and fish depending on the season, with lighter options at lunch. The bar keeps things going after dinner with cocktails and a serious wine list.

Aged cuts are displayed like exhibits before they ever see the grill, which tells you what Al Pilèr thinks the main event is. It's a meat-forward Sicilian restaurant in the hill-town centre of Nicosia, where the menu rounds out the charred headliners with generous, colour-forward classic dishes that lean slightly creative. The name comes from an old boundary stone that once split the Arab and Norman quarters of town, still partly visible nearby.

Cantucci and ricciarelli stacked near the entrance for sale set the tone before you've seen a menu. This is a Tuscan restaurant in a historic building on the edge of the city, the kind of place where meat is the point and fresh pasta is made the old way. The dining room runs classic and composed, service keeps pace, and the kitchen doesn't wander far from regional tradition. Private parking out front, which somehow feels like part of the personality.

Culatello ham ages on the premises here for up to 38 months, and the curing rooms are open to visitors, which tells you something about how seriously this Emilian restaurant takes the subject. The menu runs from gran lesso to tortelli with a faint sweetness, and the cheese trolley alone could occupy a pleasant half hour. Lambrusco fans will find the wine list flattering; everyone else can lean on the French section.

Stone walls and Chianti hills visible through the windows set the scene at this old-school Tuscan restaurant, where the kitchen takes traditional recipes and nudges them, carefully, into something more contemporary without losing the plot. The room carries the weight of the building without feeling like a museum, and the front-of-house guides wine choices with the sort of quiet authority that makes you feel like you chose well yourself.