The Best Places to Eat in Italy

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.

Stone vaulting from an old monastery frames the dining room at this seafood-forward restaurant on the Marina di Casal Velino promenade. The chef grows some of his own produce and, on occasion, catches his own fish, which is either admirably dedicated or quietly unhinged depending on your point of view. The cooking pulls from Campanian tradition and bends it with a personal touch, making it the most ambitious table on a stretch of coast that doesn't have many.

A medieval castle that once belonged to one of Italy's great statesmen is an excellent place to eat anchovy and peppers, and the kitchen here leans into that energy. This is a sit-down restaurant with a modern Piedmontese menu, where classic regional ingredients get a contemporary reworking and the chef makes a point of using every scrap of what comes through the door. Fish dishes from beyond the region round things out.

Tribal motifs on the walls, wicker chairs, and dark wood tables set the mood at this relaxed but polished seafood restaurant just off a busy stretch of road in Marina di Pietrasanta. The kitchen leans Mediterranean with a cosmopolitan eye, and the wine cellar runs deep and international. Steamed langoustines and prawns with crisp vegetables have become the kind of dish regulars order without consulting the menu.

Tucked into one of Lucca's old-town squares, this trattoria spreads across four dining rooms, one lined floor to ceiling with bottles and the others hung with artwork from the city's famous comics festival. The menu runs Tuscan classics, meat and fish both, and the tortelli filled and sauced the traditional Lucca way is the thing to order. In summer, tables spill outside into the square.

A cycle path is all that stands between the terrace and Lake Garda, which means a warm evening here involves a quiet negotiation for the outdoor tables. This is a lakeside restaurant leaning heavily into fish, split between local catch from the water you're practically sitting in and seafood from the coast. The kitchen balances the classic and the contemporary without making a fuss about it. A handful of guestrooms upstairs, all with lake views, if you'd rather not leave.

A timber Alpine house in the Val di Non, where a husband-and-wife team has been running a regional restaurant for what feels like forever. She works the room with the ease of someone who actually likes people; he cooks local beef, char, game, and cheese with the quiet precision of a man who has made these dishes a thousand times and isn't bored yet. A few fish dishes and seasonal additions from beyond the valley round things out.

One dining room looks straight onto the bell tower of the Basilica Collegiata; the other turns inward and quieter. Alloro is a small, modern Sicilian restaurant in Acireale's baroque center, where the kitchen takes traditional island cooking somewhere more assertive and personal. Tasting menus or à la carte, the meal ends with a dessert riff on tiramisù they've renamed with a pun that works better in Italian but lands either way.

You reach this mountain restaurant by cable car from Riscone, then on foot through the snow, which sets expectations appropriately. Norbert Niederkofler's "Cook the Mountain" philosophy means the seasonal Alpine menu wastes nothing and imports nothing it doesn't have to. The five tables with the view go to tasting-menu guests, booked well ahead. The last cable car down leaves at 5pm, so yes, plan accordingly.

A neighborhood bistro where the menu shifts with the seasons and the kitchen sources from small producers, so what arrives at the table depends on the week as much as the chef. The room is relaxed but not sloppy, casual enough that you won't feel underdressed. Ask the owner about wine and be prepared for actual enthusiasm rather than the usual recitation; he steers the pairings and clearly means it.

The tilde in the name nods to the sea between Campania and Sardinia, the chef's two homes, which tells you something about the ambition before you've sat down. This is a small, intimate restaurant with an open kitchen and handmade décor throughout, the name itself meaning "by hand." The cooking is creative and Sardinian at its core, with enough of a personal angle to feel distinct from the island's more traditional spots.

Exposed stone walls and wooden beams from a Renaissance palazzo sit alongside contemporary furniture at this fusion bistro tucked into Palazzo Forti. The menu moves between traditional meat and fish dishes and Asian touches, with small sharing plates like bao alongside more substantial options. On warm nights, the cloister with its old walls and soft lighting is the place to sit, and Sunday brunch draws a loyal local crowd.

A historic building on the South Tyrolean wine road, with a garden romantic enough to make you forget the menu is short. This is a regional restaurant where the chef leans into local ingredients, venison and Termeno asparagus alongside house-cured speck, with a few fish dishes rounding things out. Everything has a modern, considered feel without straining for it. Guestrooms are available if the wine list makes leaving seem like a poor decision.

A castle in the middle of a small South Tyrolean village that somehow runs two dining rooms with completely different personalities. Stain is the wood-paneled Tyrolean stube side, with regional cooking and terrace tables when the weather cooperates. La Lumosa seats four tables and leans into a five or six course contemporary tasting menu. Twelve suites upstairs mean you don't have to figure out the drive home.

A family-run osteria tucked into a pretty Alpine village where two valleys meet and the Presanella mountains loom above. Three small dining rooms carry a genuine mountain feel, and a veranda with floor-to-ceiling windows lets the landscape do its thing. The kitchen leans into the region, turning local char and venison into something more considered than the surroundings might suggest, without ever losing the thread back to traditional recipes.

Solar panels on a centuries-old farmhouse roof set the tone for this countryside restaurant in Ambivere, where the team is quietly making a point about not having to choose between old and new. The kitchen leans into local farmers and seasonal produce, turning out modern plates that still feel rooted in Lombard tradition. The dining room is polished without being stiff, and the service has the kind of easy warmth that tends to outlast trends.

The art nouveau interior puts "trattoria" in embarrassing air quotes the moment you walk in. This old-school Ravenna institution has been in the same family for what feels like forever, and the dining room runs accordingly: regional cooking built around truffles, local fish, and serious meats, while the owner works the floor with the easy warmth Romagna seems to produce in unlimited quantities. Book ahead; it fills up fast.

Handmade fresh pasta and an almond cake with zabaione are the reasons regulars make the drive into the hills outside Piacenza. This is a proper family trattoria, the kind that has been feeding the same valley for generations, with a menu anchored in Emilian classics: house charcuterie, roasts, boiled meats. In good weather the veranda opens up and the whole operation moves outside. They sell their own cured meats to take home, in case once wasn't enough.

Tucked into one of San Polo's quieter backstreets, this old-school seafood trattoria has the kind of worn floors and familiar wall clutter that take decades to get right. The menu is Venetian and unapologetic about it, but the real action arrives verbally, when the server rattles off the day's specials with the confidence of someone who already knows what you should order. The wine list runs Italian and French, and leans generous on value.

The terrace looks out over Tuscan hills, valleys, and the terracotta rooftops of villages that seem placed there for the purpose, which makes the alfresco dining in summer feel a little unfair to everywhere else. Inside, it's an elegant, unhurried Italian restaurant in the old-school sense, with service that actually notices you. The kitchen runs on regional Tuscan cooking, meat and fish both, updated just enough to feel considered rather than museum-piece.

The aperitivo snacks and cocktails arrive first, which tells you something about the pace here. This trattoria-style restaurant in central Alba runs on Piedmontese tradition, with homemade pasta, bread, and desserts anchoring a menu that leans toward generous portions over fuss. The chef came up through starred kitchens in the Langhe before landing here, and the Fassona beef with red-wine sauce is the kind of dish that makes the local provenance feel like a point.

Brick vaulted ceilings meet quietly contemporary furniture in this tucked-away dining room in Giulianova's old town. The chef runs a loose tasting format where you pick your own dishes and portions, most of them plant-forward, seasonal, and vivid enough to make you wonder how vegetables got that confident. Much of the produce comes from his own garden, and a no-waste ethos runs through the whole kitchen. Ask the staff what the name means.

The veranda dining room faces Lake Garda so squarely that the sailboats and the Trentino peaks feel like deliberate decor. This contemporary Italian restaurant on the lungolago keeps the cooking straightforward enough to let local ingredients carry the weight, with lake fish getting the most prominent run of the menu. Saltwater fish appears too, and the wine list is solid. The Ora wind does its thing outside; inside, it's calm and almost Milan-sleek.

The dining room still has the old water wheel from when this building actually moved water, and it sets the tone for a restaurant that takes Sicilian tradition and quietly does something personal with it. The chef leans hard into vegetables from the kitchen garden and builds seasonal, creative menus that draw from both the island's coast and its interior. The wine cellar runs to over 1,700 labels, which is a lot for anywhere, let alone Canicattì.

The summer terrace at this modern Italian restaurant inside the Villa Riviera resort frames a sweep of Ligurian coastline that looks best when the sun goes down. Inside, the veranda dining room keeps things minimal and calm, a nice contrast to the view. The kitchen works in a contemporary register with the region folded in throughout, right down to a dessert that pairs basil and olives with white chocolate and pine nut ice cream, which sounds stranger than it eats.

Rolling carts of hand-carved prosciutto and boiled meats do the heavy lifting here, the way they have been doing at this old-school Emilian dining room in a fifteenth-century palace for longer than anyone cares to count. Sfogline roll fresh pasta every morning, and the dessert cart arrives with zabaione to pour over pears in red wine. The whole meal reads like someone's grandmother made the menu and refused all suggestions.

The dining room sits inside Matera's first pharmacy, and the view from the terrace takes in the Sasso Barisano in one unobstructed sweep. This is a creative Italian restaurant where the cooking leans toward restraint rather than spectacle, which in a town this photogenic is practically a political statement. Two tasting menus run alongside a full à la carte, so you can commit or hedge your bets depending on the mood.

A hotel restaurant inside a five-star mountain resort near the Austrian border, where the kitchen garden out back isn't decorative. Creative regional cooking leans on herbs and vegetables grown on the property, and the wine list is deep enough that the sommelier decants tableside without making it feel like a performance. The Val di Fleres setting does a lot of the heavy lifting before the food even arrives.

Perched on the top floor of the historic Kursaal building on the seafront, this contemporary Italian restaurant makes a meal of the view before the food even arrives. The menu leans on Adriatic fish and seafood, with classic regional preparations alongside more restless cooking, a turbot dish that uses fillets, cheeks, and something approximating the crackling being a fair example of how the kitchen thinks. Tableside finishing keeps things theatrical.

An old vaulted ceiling and a live kitchen on the ground floor set the tone at this family-run restaurant in central Trento, where the cooking lands somewhere between the Trentino hills and a quietly modern sensibility. Lunch runs lighter; the full menu rewards a bit of planning ahead. The room manages to feel historic and unfussy at once, which is harder than it sounds.

A reservation-only vegetarian restaurant in the old center of Marino, where a short, daily-adjusted menu means the kitchen cooks only what it can do properly that day. The chef works plant-based ingredients, pulses, and fruit into combinations that are bolder and more technically involved than the spare, minimalist room suggests. The kind of place that converts skeptics quietly, without making a fuss about it.

Climbing plants soften deliberately aged green walls, and a small terrace out front sets the tone before you've ordered a thing. This is a Nikkei restaurant and cocktail bar where the chef, a Peruvian native, works the Japanese-Peruvian crossover with a light hand and sharp contrasts. Tasting menus and à la carte both run alongside a sip pairing, small cocktail tastings built around Nikkei ingredients, which is a more considered idea than it sounds.

Red paper lanterns over the tables and lounge music set the mood at this contemporary Chinese restaurant near Piazza Wagner. The kitchen takes classic dim sum and familiar Chinese cooking and nudges them somewhere more interesting, folding in foie gras, XO sauce, cured ham, and other detours that feel considered rather than gimmicky. The room is sleek enough that you'd dress up, relaxed enough that you wouldn't stress about it.

A winding uphill road from the coast leads to this family-run trattoria, where the terrace looks back out over the sea. The menu is almost entirely meat, rooted in Abruzzo tradition: arrosticini, barbecued cuts, fragrant mushrooms, and one token salted cod for the outliers. Save room for the pizza dogge, a layered dessert of sponge, custard, and Alkermes liqueur that has absolutely nothing to do with pizza. The wine list stays local.

A preserved oak tree grows from the center of the dining room, lit up like it knows it's the main attraction. This creative restaurant in a stone building on the edge of Colle di Val d'Elsa serves modern tasting menus alongside an à la carte that moves between meat, seafood, and vegetables with the seasons. The kitchen leans into technique without losing the comfort of familiarity, and the front-of-house team keeps things warm and loose.

A bar and restaurant sitting in the small piazza at the top of Bergamo's funicular, with a terrace that looks out over the city below. The room has a retro, slightly Anglo-inflected feel, all rustic wood and unhurried service from staff who seem genuinely pleased you made the climb. Meat is the kitchen's main argument, backed by bread and desserts baked in-house. In summer the terrace is the obvious move; apparently a few regulars claim it in winter too, when the sun cooperates.