The 35 Best Osterias in the World

Tucked into the covered passage des Panoramas, this Italian osteria in bistro clothing runs on a carte blanche menu and whatever the chef felt like that morning. The cooking is Sardinian at heart, pulling from Italian produce with the confidence of someone who doesn't need to explain himself. Vitello tonnato, polpette, ricotta ravioli: straightforward dishes that taste like someone actually cared. The wine cellar side of things is not decorative.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Cherasco is famously snail country, and this welcoming osteria in the town's quiet historic centre leans into that without apology. It's a traditional Piedmontese dining room where the kitchen updates regional classics rather than dismantling them, and the friendly staff will walk you through the menu without making you feel like a tourist. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. The wine list runs deep, as you'd expect this close to Barolo.

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2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A former bank in Phibsborough that now moves money in pasta and wood-fired fish instead, Borgo is a lively Italian osteria with a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a room that earns its noise. The menu runs from sourdough pizzette through homemade pastas to a wood-fired section for meat and fish, all of it straightforward and carefully cooked. Portions are generous, prices are honest, and the polenta cake with seasonal fruit is worth leaving room for.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

An osteria tucked into a medieval hamlet off the Via Francigena, inside what were once a monastery's wine cellars. The format leans into fixed tasting menus built around whatever the kitchen garden is producing, with portions that suggest the monks ate well. The Florentine steak over embers is always on, and the cured meats and cheeses are made and aged in-house. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, with a terrace that earns the word atmospheric.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Checked cotton tablecloths and bottles lined up on the shelves set the tone at this old-school osteria in Borgo San Giuliano, the painted fishermen's quarter that Fellini grew up loving. The kitchen stays deep in Romagna tradition: house-cured meats, fresh pasta, and Mora Romagnola pork cooked several ways. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks with the crowd of locals who seem entirely unsurprised to be eating this well.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

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1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Photographs of old locomotives and rows of copper pots line the walls of this long-running osteria in Pordenone's historic center. The kitchen leans hard into Friulian tradition, turning out cured meats, local cheeses, and braised beef cheek with polenta, the kind of food that arrives in portions sized for people who actually work. The room runs warm and convivial, the way an old neighborhood place does when it has nothing to prove.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The red house at Kaberlaba holds two restaurants, and this is the more relaxed one, where the kitchen turns toward Veneto classics like baccalà alla vicentina and tripe. It shares a roof with a Michelin-starred sibling, so the odd crossover dish appears on the menu. The carbonara, made with local ingredients, has developed its own following. An osteria in the old sense: proper food, full flavors, no need to dress up.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The glass garage façade on Armitage opens into a warm room of bare wood tables and glowing Edison bulbs, the kind of osteria that takes Piedmont seriously without taking itself too seriously. The menu stays tight and regional, meaning tajarin with ragù, hand-pinched cheese ravioli, and vitello tonnato done properly. The staff moves like they actually want you there, which in Chicago is not always a given.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

An old-school osteria just outside Masone that sat dark for years before two young chefs decided to bring it back, cooking the border country where Liguria tips into Piedmont. The room feels pleasantly contemporary without forgetting what the building is, and the kitchen does the same, taking regional recipes and pressing them forward with technique that earns its keep. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A contemporary osteria a short walk from Parliament, named for the owners' grandparents, who were in the trade long before it was fashionable. The menu stays close to Roman tradition but makes room for a Marsala Florio pairing that runs alongside each course, which is a more interesting idea than it sounds. Book ahead if you want a seat on the terrace, and book ahead anyway.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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Red mahogany tables, candlelight, and a Sicilian wine list that takes its job seriously set the tone at this South Side osteria and bar. The cooking leans into southern Italy, with Calabrian heat showing up in the shrimp and duck ragu turning up in the gnocchi. It fills up fast, and the room rewards a reservation. Bring someone you want to impress, or at least someone who won't rush you through a lambrusco spritz.

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Paper plates arrive loaded with beef cartilage and horse meat stew at this Porta Venezia osteria, where cucina povera is the whole point. Diego Rossi, the chef behind Trippa, runs a room built around offal, crostini, and natural wine, served from aperitivo hour until midnight. On weekends, the crowd from Via Melzo spills onto the pavement, which tells you something about how the neighborhood feels about the place.

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A handwritten menu posted outside lists what they don't serve: no pizza, no ice, no cappuccino, no spritz. Inside this tiny osteria a short walk from the Uffizi, the kitchen cooks old Tuscan with no detours, from pappardelle in duck ragu to peposo, a peppery beef stew that dates back to the Renaissance. The room fits a handful of tables, and the regulars treat it like a canteen they'd rather you didn't know about.

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