The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Italy

Francesco Martucci's pizzeria in Caserta reads less like a pizza shop and more like a research lab that happens to have a wood oven. The dough is studied for acidity and thermal contrast, the toppings pull from Campania's pantry and beyond, and the result lands somewhere between a neighborhood staple and fine dining. Ranked second in all of Italy by 50 Top Pizza, it draws the kind of pilgrims who book before they book a hotel.

White tablecloths and a bright room in the Trionfale neighborhood, where a trattoria built around Roman classics draws the kind of crowd that actually knows its guanciale. The team behind it includes a chef with serious fine-dining credentials, which explains why the cacio e pepe and amatriciana feel familiar and yet somehow sharper than you expected. The wine list rewards attention, and the service keeps a pace that doesn't make you feel processed.

A sprawling osteria on the Pozzuoli waterfront that covers a lot of ground, a proper sit-down dining room in shades of green and blue, a wine bar for a casual glass, a garden with lake views, and a shop downstairs selling provisions. The kitchen moves between fried snacks, fish, meat, and traditional pasta nudged toward something more contemporary. The wine list, built over decades of obsessive travel, runs deep and stays reasonably priced.

A pastry shop in the heart of a small Campanian town, recently renovated so the display cases now run low and horizontal, letting the cakes and chocolates present themselves properly. The range runs from classic leavened pastries to pralines and semifreddi with chocolate bases, and the Black Forest cake has its devotees. It ranked among 50 Top Italy's best chocolate desserts, if that helps narrow things down.

The spleen sandwich alone has been drawing the brave and the curious to this old-school Palermo institution for longer than anyone working there can remember. It's a casual street food shop in the Kalsa district, with outdoor tables facing the Gothic facade of San Francesco church, serving arancine, panelle, caponata, and cannoli to anyone who bothers to show up. The menu is a short course in what Palermo actually eats.

A plant-only restaurant in Turin where the chef works closely with Piedmontese farmers and lets the season dictate everything, right down to the birch sap in the drinks. The open kitchen keeps the small dining room lively, and the wine list moves comfortably between Champagne and natural bottles. Nothing on the plate comes from an animal, but the cooking is anything but austere.

The babà here landed at number five on 50 Top Italy's ranking of the best in the country, which is a serious thing to say about a single pastry. This is a neighborhood pasticceria in Pollena Trocchia where the chef trained across Italy and France before coming home, and the French pastry tradition shows in the decor as much as the technique. Sfogliatelle and choux fill the case alongside the classics.

Carved into the slope of Monte Testaccio, a hill built from ancient broken amphorae, this old-school Roman trattoria has been feeding the neighborhood on quinto quarto, the offal cuts that Testaccio made its own, for what feels like forever. The wine cellar runs deep and the service carries the quiet confidence of six generations. The bucatini all'amatriciana, ranked among Italy's finest, arrives with extra pecorino on the side, unprompted, as it should.

A seafood restaurant perched inside the Regional Park of Monte Conero, with big windows and tables angled so the Adriatic does most of the decorating. The kitchen builds each year's menu around a single theme, creative dishes with a careful hand. You can graze on a couple of street-food bites at lunch or commit to the full dinner menu. When it's warm enough, the outside tables fill up, blankets included for when the wind disagrees.

Raw seafood and Champagne behind the port, in the courtyard of a sixteenth-century palace, is a combination that Trani somehow keeps to itself. This is a seafood restaurant with a nautical bistro feel, where the kitchen keeps its hands light and lets the fish do the talking. Locals fill the tables, always a useful sign. The raw plates are a reason to linger, and the southern-style pasta courses follow naturally.

A pastry shop in the Monteverde quarter where single-portion cakes have quietly become the whole point. The team turns out both old-school classics, like sacher and apricot tart, and contemporary creations that regulars now order without looking up. Breakfast pastries run from croissants to krapfen to pain au chocolat, and there's a savory counter and made-to-order cakes for good measure. It ranked seventh on 50 Top Italy's chocolate dessert list.

A large fireplace anchors the dining room of this vegetable-forward restaurant set inside a rural villa on the Murgia plateau, where warm wood and old stone set the mood before the food says anything. The seven-course tasting menu shifts with the weather and the season, built around vegetables and wild herbs cooked quickly enough to stay themselves. The wine list leans toward natural and biodynamic producers from the region. Ranked third among Italy's vegetable bistros by 50 Top Italy.

A butcher shop that never quite stopped being one, Da Gigione Gourmand in Pomigliano d'Arco has grown into a sit-down restaurant where the sandwich is still the main event. The family behind it built a following on aged, carefully sourced cuts and fillings that take the format seriously, backed by a solid list of wines and craft beers. It ranked second on 50 Top Italy's Best Sandwiches list, which tells you where the priorities lie.

A Roman osteria a block from the Parliament building that somehow never became a tourist trap, even though it could have. The carbonara is famous enough to rank among Italy's top five, loaded with crispy guanciale, silky egg cream, and enough black pepper to mean business. Roman classics like saltimbocca and abbacchio fill out a menu that regulars navigate without looking. Eat outside in the little alley when the weather plays along.

Perched above the port of Anzio, this old-school seafood restaurant has been running on family tradition and whatever came off the boats that morning for longer than most regulars can remember. The raw platter arrives with just oil and salt, which is either confidence or a dare. A deep wine list leans toward natural producers. It ranks fourth on the 50 Top Italy fish restaurant list, which should tell you something about the queue for a table.

A neighborhood provisions shop that never quite decided whether it wanted to be a deli or a trattoria, so it became both. Shelves of organic cheeses, oils, and cured meats share the room with about ten tables where regulars eat cooked dishes and serious sandwiches. Everything points back to Sicily, and the family running it clearly knows the producers behind every jar on the shelf.

A bakery a short walk from Napoli Centrale that's been pulling sfogliatelle from the oven since before your grandparents were born, in both the flaky riccia and the crumbly frolla. The shells crack open to a perfumed, creamy filling, and the place operates at a pace that suggests demand has never once slackened. Ranked second on 50 Top Italy's sfogliatelle list. Leave with a cartoccio wrapped in blue and white paper or don't bother claiming you visited Naples.

A pastry shop in the Piedmontese countryside where the display case runs from classic regional sweets to chocolate work, confections, gelato, and leavened breads, covering most of the dessert canon in a single stop. The spoon desserts are the quiet argument for making the drive, and the tiramisù, ranked among Italy's finest, lands light in texture but deep in flavor. Bonet, done properly, also shows up to make the case.

The menu calls it a "non-amatriciana," and that framing tells you everything about this Prati restaurant. Shallots cooked down to almost nothing and a touch of balsamic vinegar stand in for the usual guanciale swagger, and it works. The room runs Nordic-minimal, the team runs tight, and the cooking looks outward while keeping one foot in Rome. Fase lands at number eight on 50 Top Italy's Best Amatriciana list, which for a rule-breaking version is a pointed result.

The oyster plateau arrives in three sizes and reads like a passport, with Italian, French, and Irish varieties arranged by origin. This is a seafood restaurant near San Siro, elegant enough to dress for, where the menu moves from raw shellfish to fire, the chef notably skilled on the grill. The tuna belly saltimbocca gives you a sense of how tradition gets handled here: with a light hand and a clear point of view.

Soft buns stuffed with ingredients sourced almost entirely from Sicilian small producers, this sandwich shop on Piazza Olivella has been running the same game for a while and shows no signs of losing the room. The fillings read like a tour of the island's niche farms: Nebrodi black pork, Sciacca anchovies, Modica chicken. Fresh potato chips on the side, natural wines and craft beers to wash it down.

Via Margutta has been an artists' haunt since forever, and this vegetarian restaurant fits the neighborhood's slightly romantic self-image without being precious about it. The menu is wide enough that committed carnivores rarely feel ambushed, with tasting menus and à la carte options, and the desserts tend to be the thing people mention unprompted. Spagna metro is steps away, making it easier to justify the second glass from a genuinely considered wine list.

A sushi restaurant in Perugia that also runs a traditional Japanese menu, and does both with the kind of unhurried seriousness you don't expect this far from the coast. The room is relaxed and welcoming, and the presentation is careful without being fussy. Prices sit above what the region usually asks, but the sourcing explains most of it. It landed at number eight on 50 Top Italy's sushi list, which for Umbria is a fairly extraordinary thing to be able to say.

Orders go through a window cut into the wall, which tells you everything about the format before you've even looked at the menu. Katsusanderia is a Japanese street food counter in Milan serving sando on housemade bread, rice bowls, and sides like potato salad and eggplant in sesame sauce. The drinks run to Japanese beer and sake, nothing fussier. It's a long way from the all-you-can-eat circuit, and the sandwiches are substantial enough that you won't need a second lunch.

A sushi and fusion restaurant in the old heart of Turin where the menu runs on the motto "Taste different," which it seems to mean. The kitchen bends Japanese technique toward Sicilian instincts and the occasional French flourish, cold green-tea noodles sharing the menu with wagyu ham and butter-seared scallop. It ranked sixth on 50 Top Italy's sushi list, for whatever direction you need pointing.

A proper sushi bar counter greets you at the door in the San Lorenzo neighborhood, the kind where the staff will walk you through the menu without making you feel like a tourist in your own dinner. The room keeps things spare, a nod to Japanese minimalism without the full performance of it. Fresh fish, simply handled, drives everything here, with salmon worth noting in particular. A small, considered wine list rounds things out.

A seafood restaurant in Porto Cesareo where the menu follows the catch rather than the calendar, and a raw platter arrives before you've quite settled in. The chef runs the room with her daughters and a staff that's polished without being stiff. Homemade bread and a quiet reverence for olive oil set the tone early. Ranked seventh on Italy's 50 Top Fish Restaurants list, if that helps you decide.

A Roman trattoria that has been holding down Campo de' Fiori since forever, right across from the statue of Giordano Bruno, while the tourist traps around it come and go. The menu runs through the Roman classics, and the carbonara is the reason to sit down, made with the kind of ingredient obsession that separates a real kitchen from a souvenir experience. A serious wine cellar rounds things out.

A tiny vegetable bistro tucked into the old center of Catania, where you pick your meal at the counter by choosing how many courses you want rather than what you want, since the menu changes with whatever came in that morning. Tables spill onto the street, the kitchen is open, and the whole thing runs on seasonal produce leaning vegan, with a short list of local natural wines to round it out.

Gluten-free, fully vegan, and somehow not the least bit preachy about either, Linfa is a plant-based restaurant in Milan where soft colors, scattered greenery, and a lounge vibe make the room feel more like somewhere you'd linger than somewhere you'd atone. The menu swings from pasta to sushi to a vegetable riff on a flambéed steak, which is the kind of range that keeps skeptics at the table. An eight-course tasting menu runs alongside à la carte.

A craft beer bar and meat-skewer spot on Piazza Cairoli that was pairing local brews with quality cuts before it became anyone's idea of a concept. The menu runs well beyond burgers into pork, chicken, and other skewered things, with a beer list long enough to require some help from the genuinely enthusiastic staff. It looks like a pub from the outside, which keeps expectations honest and the room easy.

A stuffed pepper is apparently the highest praise in Naples, and locals use one as a nickname for this trattoria a block from the central station. The kitchen has been around forever defending Neapolitan tradition while slipping in the odd bao filled with slow-cooked genovese, which is either heresy or confidence depending on who you ask. Pilgrims and regulars share the same tables, drawn by eggplant parmigiana and a babà that closes the argument.

A family osteria in Monteverde Vecchio whose roots trace back to Amatrice, which means the amatriciana here carries the weight of hometown pride. The Rocchi family sources from small regional producers they know personally, and the wine list moves. 50 Top Italy ranked their amatriciana second in all of Italy, which is the kind of credential that makes you order it before you've even sat down properly.

A pastry shop facing Amalfi's cathedral square, its liberty-style windows trimmed with the blues, greens, and yellows of local ceramics. The sfogliatelle, both the ridged ricce and the short-crust frolle, are filled with candied citrus that scents the whole thing without taking over. The candied orange and lemon peels dipped in chocolate are hard to walk past. Ranked sixth among Italy's sfogliatelle, if that helps you decide how many to order.

A pastry shop in Forio that locals and summer visitors have been stopping into for generations, Pasticceria F.lli Calise is best known for its cornetto ischitano, a brioche-meets-puff-pastry hybrid that is essentially the island's calling card. The babà here, ranked among Italy's finest by 50 Top Italy, is well-risen, pillowy, and soaked in fragrant syrup. A Mediterranean garden out back makes lingering over a coffee feel less like a detour and more like the whole plan.

A pastry shop in Prato run by a chef who decided the city needed more than dainty tea cakes, and built a whole sweet world around that conviction. The pesche di Prato, brioche spheres filled with pastry cream and soaked in alchermes, are the signature, but the babà earned its own recognition, landing on 50 Top Italy's list of the country's finest. Spiced panforte, pralines, and layered torte fill out a counter that rewards slow browsing.

The black-and-white spiral outside is the neighborhood shorthand for knowing where to go. Poppella is a Neapolitan pastry shop in the Sanità quarter, turning out sfogliatelle, chocolates, and babà soaked in a fragrant, well-balanced syrup. The babà lands at number four on the 50 Top Italy ranking, which in Naples is the kind of claim that invites argument, which is also the point.

A neighborhood pasticceria in the Arenella quarter, halfway between the seafront and the Vomero hill, where the display cases are never less than fully loaded with Neapolitan classics. The sfogliatelle come in both forms, the flaky ricce and the softer frolla, filled with a balance that doesn't tip into sweetness. The babà shelf is equally serious. Ranked among Italy's top ten sfogliatelle spots, it draws the whole neighborhood in, weekday or Sunday.

A pastry shop in a small Campanian town that became a quiet pilgrimage stop for anyone serious about babà. The family-run lab turns out traditional sweets, pralines, layered cakes, semifreddi, and some savory pastry worth pairing with a drink. Their babà ranked second in all of Italy on 50 Top Italy's list. The panettone, a cause the late founder championed before it was fashionable, is still made with the same unhurried care.

A sandwich shop in Milan built around one very specific idea: pork from Sienese and Chianina pigs, raised outdoors in Tuscany, smoked over fruit wood, slow-cooked for twelve hours, then finished on oak. The bread comes from ancient Verna wheat, and you pick your sauce from a short list of house-made options. The queue tends to answer any remaining questions you might have.

A sandwich shop and wine bar on the main square of a small Calabrian coastal town, where the menu changes often enough that locals have a reason to keep coming back. The fillings lean hard into regional pantry staples, capocollo, caciocavallo, and 'nduja tucked into house-made pitta or ciabatta, with vegetables that track the season. The sandwiches even have names worth reading. Ranked seventh on 50 Top Italy's Best Sandwiches list.

A vegan trattoria a short walk from Termini that makes its name doing Roman classics without any animal products, cacio e pepe and amatriciana included. The room is casual and unpretentious, the portions are honest, and the menu runs from supplì to seitan mains, so there's no shortage of places to land. A good stop whether you're vegan or just curious what Roman comfort food looks like when the kitchen redraws the rules.

The tiramisù here, ranked among Italy's finest, is the obvious reason strangers stop mid-walk across Piazza Benedetto Cairoli. Roscioli Caffè is a Rome pastry bar where the classics are taken seriously: layered cornetti, ring cakes, raisin swirls, and a parade of petite pastries that regulars navigate without looking at the case. The whole operation reads as traditional Roman, just done with unusually good ingredients.

Messina's arancini come with saffron in the rice here, which already sets them apart, and Rosticceria Famulari pushes further with thirty-odd variations, from pistachio to eggplant alla norma to mortadella with stringy cheese. This old-school street food counter in the city center also does pitone and mozzarella in carrozza, the full Messina rotisserie repertoire. It ranked fifth on the 50 Top Italy street food list, which the locals probably already knew.

A pastry shop in Minori where the chef's ricotta and pear combination put the whole Monti Lattari region on the dessert map. Crisp sfogliatelle share the case with frolle, santarosa, and cakes piled with chocolate or fruit cream, plus panettone shipped to admirers worldwide. The philosophy is straightforward: local dairy, fresh ingredients, no shortcuts. Ranked among the top sfogliatelle in Italy by 50 Top Italy.

Meat hooks still hang from the ceiling of what used to be a butcher's shop in Catania's old fish market, which tells you everything about the spirit of this street food counter. Scirocco was among the first to build a menu entirely around fresh fish delivered daily from the docks, rice balls stuffed with cuttlefish or swordfish, fried fish in a takeaway carton, and sandwiches that lean hard into Sicilian tradition. Ranked fourth on 50 Top Italy's street food list.

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 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.