The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Italy

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

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

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

Charcoal smoke threads through almost every course here, including dessert, which tells you immediately what kind of cooks run this small seafood restaurant near piazza Zama. A husband-and-wife team, him cooking and her running the room, they bring real technique and the occasional Basque detour to Rome. Tables fill fast on evenings, so book ahead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The smell of warm bread hits you before you've sat down, which tells you something about how Massimo Bottura runs this casual Emilian trattoria. The menu moves from deeply rooted regional cooking, aged pancetta, handmade tortellini, into quieter moments of creativity. Lambrusco gets an entire page of the wine list, as it should in Modena. The room is intimate and a little buzzy, and the whole place feels like a love letter to the region rather than a résumé.

A family-run fine dining restaurant in an old villa on the piazza, with a medieval tower out back housing over a thousand wine labels. The kitchen leans classic-modern, giving equal time to meat and fish, with the kind of ingredients (foie gras, scampi, lobster, caviar) that signal you're not splitting a pizza. The Frosio family has been doing this for a long time, and the front-of-house polish shows it.

The kitchen lives inside the 16th-century workshop of sculptor Antonello Gagini, which gives this contemporary restaurant a better backstory than most. A Piedmontese chef works the tension between northern Italian technique and Sicilian pantry, landing somewhere unexpected: tagliatelle made with 30 egg yolks meets tuna bottarga and citron, mussels take on 'nduja and Vietnamese bisque. Nestled between the Vucciria market and the Cala harbor, the room matches the ambition.

Korean cooking that has anchored this corner of Rome for a long time, with a menu built around rice, restorative soups, and shared plates meant to crowd the middle of the table. It reads as a casual, convivial Korean restaurant, generous in portions and calibrated in the push-pull between sweet-sour and heat. One dessert closes the menu, a detail worth knowing before you arrive hoping for options.

A 13th-century armoury at the edge of the Leocorno contrada, now a candlelit dinner spot a short walk from Il Campo. The dining room pairs medieval stonework with mid-century furniture, which shouldn't work but does. The kitchen leans into Sienese meat cookery while drifting occasionally toward the sea. Below it all, a wine cellar carved from Etruscan tufa holds around 300 labels, which is a very good reason to linger.

A nineteenth-century building with a balcony running the inner courtyard sets the tone for this Piedmontese restaurant in the small town of Caluso. The menu is a fairly faithful portrait of the region: lots of meat, some fish, vegetables that sometimes come from the kitchen garden out back. It feels like someone's grandmother's house if grandmother had a strong opinion about local sourcing and a cellar worth investigating.

The picture windows frame the Tyrrhenian Sea so completely that the blue of the water bleeds into the dining room. This is a proper sit-down restaurant on Capri, where the kitchen runs classic Italian dishes alongside modern reinterpretations, the kind of place where a lemon tartlet arrives dusted with caper and pepper powder and somehow makes perfect sense. Dress a little, bring someone worth impressing, and let the bay do half the work.

A Baroque palazzo on a quiet piazza, with a fine staircase leading up to a quietly stylish dining room, is the kind of setting that could coast on atmosphere alone. This fine dining restaurant doesn't, though. The kitchen turns out creative regional cooking built around local meat and fish, served as a four, eight, or more course surprise menu. Book the terrace table for two early, very early.

The dining room sits right on the edge of Lake Orta, with views that stretch out to the Island of San Giulio, which is the kind of backdrop that makes it hard to focus on the menu. This is a hotel restaurant with Mediterranean cooking that occasionally takes a detour into more inventive territory. The roof terrace bar upstairs handles aperitifs and after-dinner drinks, and the wine cellar is well stocked for the serious-minded.

The outdoor terrace sits a few steps from the Viareggio promenade, which makes choosing a table inside a decision you'll quietly regret. This is a seafood restaurant where the kitchen leans on personal technique rather than obvious spectacle, the wine list rewards browsing, and the service is the kind that feels attentive without being theatrical. Bring people you want to linger with; the sea view does a lot of the conversational heavy lifting.