The Best Places to Eat in Italy

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.

Langoustines arrive at the table still in the pan they were cooked in, with oil, wine, garlic, and rosemary, which tells you most of what you need to know about this seafood restaurant on the Adriatic coast. The fish comes almost entirely from that same sea, the menu never strays onto land, and the wine list follows suit with mostly whites. An old-school institution in Giulianova Lido, and one locals have been counting on for a long time.

The ground floor of the old Banco di Napoli building, now home to the Gallerie d'Italia museum, makes for an unlikely but convincing lunch spot. This cafe-bistro and pasticceria runs from quick bar bites through to a full menu that spans international dishes and Campanian classics, the kind of place where you can eat as lightly or as seriously as the afternoon allows. The candele pasta with Neapolitan ragu and the babà tend to be the arguments for staying.

A restored Tuscan hamlet perched between Montepulciano and Montefollonico, where the chef decides the menu each morning based on whatever the estate has produced. Dinner is al fresco in warm weather, and a glass of the sunset comes free. In cooler months the dining room looks straight into an open kitchen. The road to get there is genuinely pastoral, which is the point. Book ahead if you're not sleeping here, and don't expect a printed menu to study on the way.

The large fridge near the entrance does the menu explaining before you've sat down, stacked with dry-aged cuts and house-cured salumi. This is a Lombard butcher-restaurant where Piedmontese beef is the point, grilled over coals or served boiled in the old style. In summer the courtyard fills up and the place feels like the kind of lunch that quietly takes the whole afternoon.

Tucked into the old town's narrow lanes, Machettö is a small contemporary restaurant where the chef, a Campanian transplant now firmly rooted in Liguria, folds the region's traditions into each dish with a light hand. The dining room runs warm and elegant without fuss. The brandacujun, that old Ligurian salt cod classic, gets finished tableside by the chef himself, which is either charming or theatrical depending on your mood.

The kitchen has a window onto the pass, so you can watch the brigade work while the sommelier talks you through the pairings. This is a contemporary seafood restaurant grown out of a partnership with the fishmonger next door, and the menu stays loyal to that origin: fish, shellfish, and vegetables, with quiet nods toward Japan in the marinades and fresh pasta. The room is elegant without being stiff.

Inside a converted multi-use building that also houses a museum and exhibition spaces, this roomy, post-industrial restaurant brings the flavors of Campania north to Turin. The chef's plin pasta, traditionally Piedmontese, gets reworked with cacio, black pepper, and raw prawns, which is either an act of diplomacy or a quiet provocation, depending on where you're from.

A cozy trattoria in the Nomentano quarter, a student neighborhood northeast of the center where no tour bus has ever made a wrong turn. The kitchen works its way through regional Italian traditions and then quietly does something odd and right: a classic Mantuan pumpkin tortello becomes roasted squash with curry and amaretti. The room is small, vintage in feel, and the cooking lands somewhere between a Sunday lunch and a genuinely curious mind.

A Hong Kong-born chef and her Suzzara-raised partner run this quietly personal restaurant where the menu splits between regional Italian, fish-forward traditional plates, and openly Asian cooking, sometimes on the same table. The room reflects their shared eye for applied arts, and the wine list travels as freely as the food. Seasonal, local sourcing underpins both sides of the menu, which keeps the whole thing from feeling like a gimmick.

The bar up front mixes cocktails while the dining room, minimal and elegant, handles something more considered: a modern Italian kitchen that moves between tradition and invention without making a fuss about it. It sits in a quietly residential corner of the city that fills up at dinner, making the few pavement tables feel like a bonus. The tarte Tatin has its own following.

The focaccia di Recco on the menu here isn't a nod to local tradition; it's the reason there is a local tradition. This old-school Ligurian restaurant in Recco has been in the same family for generations, and part of the building still runs as a focacceria so nobody has to wait for the good part. The main dining room goes further, with fish-forward cooking that leans traditional but takes the occasional modern turn.

Tucked beside the Fratelli Massucco winery in the Piedmontese hills, this tasting-menu restaurant gives you vineyards on one side and a kitchen garden on the other. The chef and his partner run it together, leaning hard into local ingredients and regional recipes, with quiet flashes of creativity that keep things from feeling folkloric. Three menus, including a vegetarian one, plus à la carte if commitment feels like too much today.

A Roman chef running a Piedmontese kitchen is either a provocation or a proposition, and here it reads as the latter. This contemporary Italian restaurant near the city center offers a surprise tasting menu or a full à la carte, with dishes that move between local tradition and something more personal: vivid, colorful plates built around seasonal produce and whatever the market is doing with meat and fish that week.