Best Restaurants in Como: Where to Eat by Style and Area

What eating in Como is really like

Como's cooking is Lombard first and lake second. The city's trattorie lean on slow-cooked meat, butter and cheese, while the water brings freshwater fish that rarely appears on menus elsewhere in Italy. Trattorie along the lake specialise in fish taken from it, and the Lecco shore has one of the strongest examples, which is one good reason to eat on that branch rather than in the centre.

Beyond the fish, the food culture is unshowy. The city has a long osteria tradition and still supports rooms that have been feeding people for a very long time, such as Ristorante Sociale, opened in the early nineteenth century. The cooking worth planning around is in the side streets and the hillside crotti above the lake, where the settings are old and the menus are built on tradition.

How to read a Como menu: pesce di Lago, missoltini and the dishes worth ordering

Pesce di Lago means lake fish, and it is the phrase to look for. Two cured preparations matter. Missoltini are sun-dried, pressed shad, strongly savoury and usually served with polenta or folded through pasta; carpione is a marinade of vinegar, onion and herbs in which fried fish is left to cool, giving a sour-sweet, pickled flavour. Both are worth ordering at least once.

Around the lake, the dishes to know are tagliolini with missoltini, riso col persico (rice with perch) and lavarello, a white fish often finished with butter and sage. Osteria Sali e Tabacchi in Mandello Lario serves its lake fish by season and market, and the menu runs to agoni and lavarello in carpione, tagliolini with missoltini, riso col persico and lavarello al burro e salvia.

Lombard tradition covers the rest. Expect freshwater and sea fish in trattorie, seasonal menus and, in the old city rooms, a wide choice of desserts made in house alongside a rich wine list and traditional Como dishes at Ristorante Sociale.

The historic osterie and trattorie in the centre

Ristorante Sociale is the deep-historic choice: a restaurant opened in the early nineteenth century, whose rooms were frequented by actors and figures from the neighbouring Teatro Sociale, and which reopened in its current site in 2008 after a long restoration. It spreads across three spaces: a rustic stone-vaulted ground floor, a first-floor hall with frescoes and reliefs in a palazzo once home to Pope Innocent XI, and an internal courtyard for summer evenings near the church of San Giacomo. Order from the traditional Como repertoire and finish with something from the dessert list.

Osteria del Gallo on Via Vitani is described as an old story with a new chapter still being written, on the plate and in the glass. That signals a kitchen in transition rather than a museum piece, which is exactly the sort of address worth booking when you want tradition without formality. Via Vitani places you in the compact centre, walkable from the cathedral and the lakefront.

Antica Trattoria della Pila sits at Via della Pila 6 in the Camnago Volta district, out towards the city's edge. QuiComo picks it out for anyone who wants to sink into the past and the silence of another time, with a wine list fitted to the room; the same address is described elsewhere as a family-run trattoria with a Provençal-style courtyard for summer evenings. That makes it a warm-weather booking; in winter the appeal is the old-fashioned dining room.

Trattoria la Costa was founded at the start of the twentieth century by the Nessi family in what was then the Como outskirts, and was renewed in 1997 by Pierluigi Genazzini with Giuliana Della Valle and their children Ivan and Betta. The cooking stays squarely Lombard, the rooms are large, warm and bright, and the wine selection spans regions with plenty by the glass.

Lake-fish cooking on the Lecco branch

Osteria Sali e Tabacchi in Mandello Lario is the benchmark trattoria for lake fish, with its dishes changing with season and market. Cheeses and wines here carry Slow Food standing, which tells you the sourcing is taken seriously. The trade-off is location: Mandello sits on the Lecco shore, so this is a deliberate trip rather than a stroll from the Duomo.

Crotto del Misto in Lezzeno is the lakeside version, a restaurant attached to a hotel with a fine terrace and a long tradition of decent cooking. The plates are typical of the Larian and regional kitchen with a flicker of originality, and the fish dishes are the ones to lean on, taken with a glass from the cellar housed in a room built in the eighteenth century.

If you want tradition without leaving the city, Crotto Civiglio on Via Cantone in the Civiglio district sets out country cooking with house wine, for anyone who wants to lose themselves in peasant flavours without fleeing Como. A crotto is a cool stone cellar or grotto used as a trattoria, and the format — simple plates, unfussy wine — is the point, a short taxi ride from the centre.

Neapolitan pizza in Como

Donnarumma on Via Garibaldi 51 is the city's reference point for true Neapolitan pizza, according to the QuiComo selection, which means a soft, blistered cornicione and a short topping list. The emphasis here is on beer rather than wine, so order accordingly. For a broader survey of the city's pizzerie, our guide to the best pizza in Como sorts the wood-fired rooms by area and style.

Pizza also turns up where you might not expect it. The 125 Lake Como on Via Borgo Vico 125, under new management, lists pizza alongside bistrot cooking and a strong natural-wine selection. That makes it a workable compromise when half the table wants a proper pizza and the other half has had enough of the lake-fish repertoire. For cheaper central options, see our cheap eats in Como.

Vegetable-led and vegan tables

Vegami on Via Borgo Vico 74 is picked out as the only truly authentic vegan kitchen in Como, with a small, carefully chosen list of natural wines. The old Via Borgo Vico location is a short walk from the centre. Book with a plant-based eater in mind and everyone else will eat well too.

Not every vegetable-led kitchen in Como is vegan. Around the lake, fine-dining rooms run dedicated vegetarian tasting paths, and Ristorante Materia in Cernobbio offers three tasting menus, one of them green. That is the upmarket version of the same idea, with a small dining room and a kitchen built on few ingredients and precise combinations.

Fine dining and special-occasion rooms around the lake

Comi 107 on Via Borgo Vico 107 is described as recherché and reserved, with a slim, cautious wine list. It is the central address when you want a polished evening without leaving the city. For a more everyday plate in the same neighbourhood, our guide to the best pasta in Como covers the pasta side of the city on its own terms.

Much of the lake's most celebrated cooking happens inside hotels, which changes the experience: polished service and often quite different menus from free-standing trattorie. La Terrazza Gualtiero Marchesi at the Grand Hotel in Tremezzo is the classic example. Likewise, Ristorante Filo at the Filario Hotel in Lezzeno, run by Alessandro Parisi, sets out three tasting routes — one at your discretion, one vegetarian and one Mediterranean — with pasta and fish to the fore.

The Trattoria del Glicine in Cernobbio is the softer version of the same category: a long-standing, carefully kept room with a summer terrace looking to the mountains and the lake, a seasonal menu that is more local and traditional in winter and more Mediterranean in summer, top-grade fish from both lake and sea, and a cellar of around a thousand labels. Order fish and let the wine list do the rest.

Other names worth knowing around the water include Al Lago del Sereno in Torno for a striking lakeside terrace, Roteo at Sala Comacina, and Mistral at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio. If you are staying in one of these hotels, the in-house restaurant can save a night's logistics; if not, treat the booking as a destination and confirm the details before you travel out.

Crotto del Sergente in Lora: the old-stone osteria

Crotto del Sergente at Via Crotto del Sergente 13 in Lora is one of the reference addresses for tradition and history. The building has been used as a crotto since at least the eighteenth century, and the original doorframes and door, exposed brick, grilles and old floor remain in place. Two small dining rooms handle the dining in winter, while summer eating moves to a multi-level garden.

The kitchen is built on typicity, research and polish, and the menu is described as evolving month by month, so you are not booking a fixed list. It is the right booking when the evening itself matters more than being close to the lakefront.

Where to eat near the sights versus where locals go

The lakefront and the cathedral square are where visitor menus cluster, and Como is no exception. On the same streets you can find a room that has been cooking the same repertoire for decades — Ristorante Sociale opened in the early nineteenth century — so look at the menu and the clientele rather than the view alone.

The other trade-off is distance. Mandello Lario, Lezzeno, Sala Comacina and the hillside crotti reward a taxi or a boat, but add time and money to the evening. Antica Trattoria della Pila sits inside the city yet still offers an escape into older Como, which suits anyone eating without a car. Build one lake excursion and one central evening into a short stay rather than trying to do both every night.

Booking, coperto and how a Como dinner works

Coperto is the cover charge added per person to the bill in many Italian restaurants, covering bread and service, and it appears on the menu if it is charged. Read the menu before ordering; when in doubt, ask and it will be added without fuss.

Book ahead for the hotel dining rooms and the well-known city addresses, especially at weekends in high season. The old-stone osterie take a more relaxed attitude, but a call the same morning is normal practice. Payment by card is common, though it is wise to carry some cash for smaller venues in the villages around the lake.

Which Como restaurant fits your evening

Choose by the meal you actually want: a slow traditional dinner in an old osteria, lake fish on the Lecco shore with the dish list in this guide, a Neapolitan pizza at Donnarumma, or a polished celebration at Comi 107 or one of the hotel dining rooms. Book one central evening and one trip out of the city, rather than filling every night with a view.

Our guide to breakfast in Como picks out the cafés and pastry counters worth waking up for. For everything else — pasta, pizza, gelato and coffee — start with one of the smaller guides and build the day around the meal. There is also a Como cooking class to consider if you want to take the local repertoire home.