Best Pizza in Como: Where to Eat It and What to Order

Why pizza in Como splits into two camps

Pizza in Como turns up mostly inside ristorante pizzerias: restaurants that bake pizza alongside a full kitchen of fish, meat and primi. Fontana D'Oro describes itself exactly this way, with a wood-fired oven, two dining rooms, a lake-view terrace and reservable rooms for groups and ceremonies with over 200 places in total. That means you can order a pizza for the table while someone else has fresh fish, which suits mixed groups and families far better than a pizza-only menu.

The alternative is the Sicilian-inflected kitchen, where pizza sits next to focacce, a small rosticceria and seafood antipasti and mains. Il Carrettiere has run this formula since opening in 1971, and its menu has always combined marinara cooking, pizze and focacce with a few meat dishes. For a table that wants one wood-fired round plus shared seafood starters, this is the more interesting shape of meal.

If you are planning a wider eating trip, the best restaurants in Como cover the sit-down end of the city beyond pizza, from lakeside dining rooms to trattorias in the centre.

Fontana D'Oro: a family-run pizzeria by the Brunate funicolare

Fontana D'Oro sits on Via Lungo Lario Trieste, a short walk from the historic centre and right beside the funicolare that climbs to Brunate. It is family-run, and the site makes a point of the quality-to-price ratio alongside a long fish list and a wood-fired pizza oven. The position makes it a sensible stop before or after the cable car, or as a lakefront dinner without crossing town.

The room matters here. There are two dining rooms and a terrace with a view over the lake, and the terrace is the main draw. Groups, birthdays, work dinners and ceremonies can reserve rooms, and the restaurant also runs as a bar for a cocktail or aperitivo with the same lake outlook. If an indoor table is fine, you are trading the view for a quieter, more ordinary meal.

What to order at Fontana D'Oro

Order the wood-fired pizza if you want the oven's work, and add a plate of fresh fish or a meat dish from the main kitchen to share. The menu is built around a wide range of fish, with meat and pizza offered as alternatives rather than afterthoughts, so a table of four can mix a couple of pizze with seafood antipasti and a second course without anyone feeling short-changed.

For a lighter evening, an aperitivo at the bar followed by a pizza on the terrace works well, since the bar is described with the same lake view as the restaurant. Just decide beforehand whether you want the full sit-down meal or the bar end of the operation, because the two feel different and the terrace is the busiest part of the building.

Como's aperitivo culture deserves its own evening, and a spritz or a glass of something cold before dinner is a normal way to start. If that is the plan, the aperitivo in Como guide maps out where to do it near the centre.

Il Carrettiere: Sicilian specialities and seafood since 1971

Il Carrettiere opened on Via Coloniola in 1971 in a building that had been a friars' convent in the Middle Ages, reworked by the Milanese architect Giorgio Calcagni into a warm, deliberately Sicilian dining room. The kitchen has always offered seafood antipasti, primi and secondi, pizze and focacce, a small rosticceria and some meat dishes, with Mediterranean fish as the daily constant. It is the kind of place where the room is part of the meal.

Because the focus is Sicilian, the shopping list leans south: typical Sicilian produce flavours the cooking, and the pizza sits comfortably beside it rather than competing for attention. That makes Il Carrettiere the better pick for a table that wants one pizza to share as a starter and a seafood main each, rather than four pizze and nothing else.

The Sferracavallo tasting menu and the midweek fish menu

Two menus at Il Carrettiere are worth knowing before you sit down. The Sferracavallo tasting menu is a seafood menu served on reservation, and the house also runs a complete fish menu on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, excluding public holidays, cooked in the Sicilian tradition. Both push the meal towards seafood, so treat the pizza as a shared extra rather than the centre of the order.

The house has added focacce designed to go with the seafood antipasti, which is a useful middle path if you want bread-and-oven food without committing to a whole pizza. Because the tasting menu depends on booking, say so when you reserve rather than asking at the table.

Pizza styles you will meet in Como

The wood-fired pizza is the default oven offer in these sit-down ristorante pizzerias, and Fontana D'Oro bakes in a wood-fired oven. Il Carrettiere adds pizze, focacce and a small rosticceria to the same oven-driven offer, so you can order a lighter, bread-based round if a whole pizza is too much.

Away from the ristorante pizzerias, pizza by the slice is a separate lunch habit. If you want pizza at midday without a sit-down meal, look for a slice shop rather than a ristorante pizzeria, and treat the two as different meals.

If the plan is a quick lunch rather than an evening out, cheap eats in Como is the better starting point for slice shops, bakeries and counter food.

Lake-view terrace or neighbourhood dining room?

The trade-off in Como is simple: a terrace over the water buys atmosphere, and an indoor room buys calm. Fontana D'Oro's lake-view terrace and bar are the draw, and the building also has two dining rooms plus reservable rooms for over 200 places in total, so on a busy evening the terrace is where the noise and the view are. If you want to talk, ask for a table inside.

Il Carrettiere offers the opposite appeal: a historic room on Via Coloniola, said to have been a friars' convent in the Middle Ages, with a specific Sicilian identity rather than a panorama. Choose it when the food is the point and the view can wait, or when you want seafood cooking that a lakeside pizzeria will not attempt.

Pizza is only one thread of the city's eating scene, and the wider Lake Como picture includes pasta, gelato and pastries worth building a day around. The best pasta in Como covers the primi end of that list.

Ordering and paying: pizza as a shared, unhurried meal

In a ristorante pizzeria, pizza arrives with the rest of the meal rather than before it, and it is normal to order antipasti, then pizze and mains together, then coffee. At Fontana D'Oro the kitchen covers fish, meat and pizza at once, so there is no need to sequence the order by course. At Il Carrettiere the seafood antipasti and the focacce are designed to be eaten together at the start.

As elsewhere in Italy, the bill may include coperto, the per-person cover charge that pays for bread and service, so do not read it as a mistake. Tipping is not expected on top when coperto is charged, though rounding up is common.

If you want a proper sit-down dinner rather than a quick slice, book ahead for the terrace at Fontana D'Oro and mention the Sferracavallo menu when reserving at Il Carrettiere. Both venues list contact details on their own sites, so you can arrange the evening in advance rather than turning up.

What to drink with pizza

Beer is the easy match for a wood-fired pizza, and a cold birra alla spina, draught beer, is what most tables order. A simple house red works too, especially if the table is sharing fish and meat as well, and the bar at Fontana D'Oro also mixes cocktails and aperitivi if you want to start there.

At Il Carrettiere, the Sicilian identity carries into the glass as well as the plate, and a light beer or a modest red keeps the seafood and the pizza on the same page. Keep the drinking moderate and let the food lead.

Where pizza fits in a day of eating in Como

Pizza belongs to the evening in Como, after a morning coffee and a lunch that leaves room. Start the day with breakfast in Como, keep lunch light, and save the appetite for a terrace table or a Sicilian dining room.

If you are in the centre early, the cafes in Como are where you stand at the bar for a quick espresso before the day properly begins.

Finish the evening with gelato rather than a dessert, and the best gelato in Como gives you a short list to work from on the walk back.

Which pizzeria should you book in Como?

Book Fontana D'Oro if you want a wood-fired pizza with a lake view and a mixed table of fish and meat eaters, ideally on the terrace before or after the Brunate funicolare. Book Il Carrettiere if the meal should be Sicilian and seafood-led, with pizza as one part of a longer dinner and the Sferracavallo menu reserved in advance. Both are family-run or long-established, and both reward a phone call over turning up at eight on a Saturday.