Best Restaurants in Amalfi: Where to Eat by Budget and Style

What Amalfi does well, and what to expect

The town's strength is coastal cooking with a fine-dining upper tier. Menus lean hard on the sea, with fresh fish and Cetara's anchovies recurring across everything from a beach kiosk to a starred tasting menu, and the rest of the plate is built from the slopes behind: lemons, vegetables, cheeses and cured meats. That range is why you can eat very differently at three price levels within one day.

Three of Amalfi's dining rooms carry a Michelin star: Glicine, La Caravella and Sensi. The rest of the list is more relaxed, running from pizza and a wine cellar at Carlo Fiamma to a family-run farm kitchen above the valley. Book dinner ahead in high season and expect the buzzy places near the duomo to be the hardest to walk into.

If your taste runs to simpler, cheaper tables, good ones are tucked into the villages and hills of the coast and the Monti Lattari rather than on the main square.

The three starred restaurants: Glicine, La Caravella and Sensi

Glicine, on the SS Amalfitana, holds one Michelin star, with Giuseppe Stanzione in the kitchen serving intense flavours drawn from the Amalfi area. It is the one to pick for a special dinner when you want a tasting-menu evening, and it is worth reserving well before you travel.

La Caravella on Via Matteo Camera holds one star and describes itself as the first restaurant in southern Italy to win a Michelin star, a claim the restaurant makes rather than a settled fact. It has been open since 1959 and remains a benchmark for a formal coast dinner.

Sensi Restaurant on Via Pietro Comite 4 holds a Michelin star awarded in 2023. Book the earliest sitting if you have a boat or bus to catch, since a tasting menu at this level stretches over an evening.

Campania classics to order on the coast

Spaghetti alle vongole (with clams) and frittura di mare (mixed fried fish) appear on almost every seafood list in town, and the anchovies from Cetara are worth ordering wherever they land, whether under a linguine or with sun-dried tomatoes and burrata. The town's lemon cream dessert, delizia al limone, is the natural finish; the cream is made with the local Sfusato Amalfitano lemons.

Away from the water, order the vegetable dishes that come off the slopes: aubergine timballo (a baked layered aubergine dish), caponata (sweet-sour cooked vegetables) and the pasta-and-potato classics that coastal families cook at home. If you plan to take a class and recreate these dishes at home, the cooking classes in Amalfi give you a kitchen to work from rather than a tasting at the table.

Seafood terraces with a view: Ristorante Al Mare and Donna Emma

Ristorante Al Mare, on the SS Amalfitana, is the fish-led dining room of the hotel Santa Caterina, celebrating the authentic flavours of the coast through traditional cooking with a strong bent for seafood. It makes a straightforward choice for a lunch that runs long; order the catch and a bottle of something local.

Donna Emma on Via Quasimodo is the other pick, a restaurant built around the coast's smells and flavours. Both work well for a special lunch where the setting matters as much as the cooking.

La Bussola sul Mare, on the Lungomare dei Cavalieri, serves the dishes of traditional Mediterranean cooking from the Amalfi Coast, prepared with care and passion.

Pizza and a quick lunch: Carlo Fiamma and Baglio

For pizza, Carlo Fiamma Pizza e Cantina on Largo della Zecca is the address to know: it pairs the authentic flavours of the Amalfi Coast with Neapolitan pizza-making given a modern, innovative twist. If you want to compare a few spots across the town and coast, it belongs on your shortlist of the best pizza in Amalfi.

Baglio Amalfi Italian Bistrò on Via Giovanni Augustariccio takes the casual middle ground, blending tradition and innovation for a relaxed lunch or early dinner. It is a sensible stop when you want a proper plate rather than a full tasting menu.

Uphill and inland: Osteria Rispoli and Agricola Fore Porta

Osteria Rispoli sits inland above Amalfi with a wide view across the gulf and a warm welcome from its owner, Vittorio. Order regional plates such as the slow-cooked meat sauce known as genovese (a Neapolitan beef and onion ragù) and the fettuccine with octopus alla Luciana, named after the fishermen's style of cooking. It costs you a drive or a climb and repays it with a calmer table.

Agricola Fore Porta on Via Paradiso is an organic family farmstay in the green Valle delle Ferriere, where the kitchen works from what the land gives. It is the place for a slow country meal when the town feels crowded, but the farm closes seasonally, so check the current opening before you build a day around it.

If you want to eat this way regularly, the trattorias in Amalfi and the surrounding hills are where you will find the simpler tables. The same appetite for cheaper, family-run rooms guides the best restaurants in Alghero, where old-town trattorias play the role that village osterias do here.

Beyond Amalfi: Atrani, Minori, Cetara, Praiano and Duoglio

The villages along the coast often beat the town centre on both price and personality. In Atrani, Osteria 'A Paranza has been run by the Proto brothers for around forty years; it is informal enough that the order is often given by voice rather than from a menu, and the cooking is classic Campanian and Mediterranean: paccheri with prawns, fusilli with mussels, tuna genovese and fried fish with seaweed.

Cetara has Da Spadone, open since 1986 in the old fishing village, where the anchovy trade still shapes what comes out of the kitchen; order the square spaghetti with Cetara anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes and burrata. In Minori, La Locanda del Pescatore pairs Mediterranean and Campanian traditions with a lemon ravioli and finishes with delizia al limone.

Down on the Spiaggia Duoglio between Maiori and Cetara, Lido degli Artisti is a plastic-chair, dark-sand beach kitchen where you eat spaghetti with anchovy sauce, clams or squid and potatoes almost at the water's edge. In Furore, Hostaria Baccofurore has been feeding the coast since 1930, and the kitchen still sends out dishes such as aubergine timballo and stuffed anchovies with smoked provola from Agerola.

Inland at Tramonti, Al Giardino di Letizia cooks with cheeses from local shepherds and home-made wine, and at Praiano the Ristorante Km0 leans on a clean, simple idea of healthy cooking, with pasta, potatoes and mussels or spaghetti with broad beans and anchovies.

How to order and pay in Amalfi

Coperto is the cover charge added per person at the table, and it is standard across the coast rather than a trick aimed at visitors; menus state it, and it is part of the bill you pay at the end. Leave a small extra tip only if you are pleased with the service.

Book dinner ahead, especially at the starred restaurants and the busy places near the duomo, and confirm the table by phone or on the restaurant's own site. For lunch, walk-ins are easier, but an early arrival still beats turning up at the peak.

Card payment is widely accepted in the town's restaurants, but carry some cash for smaller village places, beach kiosks and bars. If you are turning the day around a long lunch, keep the evening light and finish with a lemon dessert rather than a second big meal.

Which Amalfi table should you book first?

Book one starred dinner and leave the rest of your meals looser. Glicine, La Caravella and Sensi are all within easy reach of the centre, with La Caravella and Sensi only a short walk apart and Glicine a few minutes up the SS Amalfitana, so if you want the big night, choose one and build the day around it.

For the other evenings, point yourself at pizza at Carlo Fiamma, a terrace lunch at Al Mare or Donna Emma, or a village run to Da Spadone in Cetara. The hills and inland villages give you the chance to sit at a calmer table with a plate of pasta and a view across the water.