Best Restaurants in Taormina: Where to Eat by Style & Budget

Trattorias and osterie for honest Sicilian cooking

Tischi Toschi is the trattoria to know for properly made Sicilian home cooking, run by Luca Casablanca on a keen search for quality ingredients; the menu is authentic, generous and well executed, with outdoor seating and a short list of matching wines. It sits in vico Francesco Paladini, a lane off the main drag, which is exactly the sort of address worth hunting for.

Osteria RossoDiVino occupies a quiet corner at vico De Spuches, away from the tourist press, with an intimate room and a pleasant outdoor area. The kitchen builds its menu around the day's catch, keeps a few land dishes alongside it and works with seasonal local produce — order the antipasto di mare to start, then whatever fish is on. Booking is sensible for dinner, since the room is small.

For something closer to a family seafood trattoria, Trattoria Da Nino near Porta Messina has long been the substantial option: generous plates, a warm welcome and a straightforward fish brief. Two dishes carry the evening here — a frittura mista of mixed fried fish, and pesce spada alla ghiotta, swordfish stewed with tomato, olives and capers in the Sicilian style. It suits a mid-trip dinner that does not need to be an event.

Pasta with fresh fish is the other dish to keep an eye out for across these osterie, usually made with the catch the kitchen has that day rather than a fixed recipe. If pasta is what you came for, our guide to the best pasta in Taormina goes deeper on the shapes and sauces worth ordering.

Seafood with a sea view: Spisone and Mazzarò

La Capinera sits on the seafront at Spisone, opened in 2003 by chef Pietro d'Agostino, with a terrace overlooking the water and raw fish as the house speciality. Two tasting menus, one built on the sea and one on the land, structure the meal, and there is a serious Sicilian cheese selection alongside an extensive cellar. This is the address for a long fish lunch where the sound of the waves is part of the point.

Blum, inside the Mazzarò Sea Palace, is tiny — around a dozen seats on a terrace above the bay — with Riccardo Fazio cooking fine ingredients with balance and personality, and a wine list paired with cocktails. Booking is required, so reserve ahead rather than rely on luck. Going down to this stretch of coast is a deliberate choice, so build the evening around it rather than squeezing it in after a day on the Corso.

Ristorante Nui features among the sea-view tables in Taormina, part of the wave of dining rooms that treat the water as the main attraction. The trade-off is real: coastal kitchens are less convenient from the centre, but they give you the evening you cannot have up on the Corso. If you are weighing up the coast against the town, the wider Taormina Attractions: 5 Visitor Guides is useful for planning the day around either.

Fine dining rooms worth dressing up for

St. George Restaurant by Heinz Beck sits in the villa and park designed by Charles Robert Ashbee in the early 1900s, with a view over the Strait and a menu designed by Heinz Beck and executed by resident chef Salvatore Iuliano, backed by an international cellar. It is the most formal booking in town and one to arrange well ahead. Our guide to Michelin restaurants in Taormina sets out which of the town's addresses the Guide currently lists.

Otto Geleng, inside the Grand Hotel Timeo and close to the Teatro Antico, takes its name as a homage to the Berlin artist Otto von Geleng, a former mayor of the town, and its few tables look out over the sea and Etna. Chef Roberto Toro runs several menus spanning vegetables, meat and fish, and the cellar is up to the mark. Reserve as early as you can, because the seats are limited.

Principe Cerami, at the San Domenico Palace, is elegant dining in a former convent with a splendid terrace and chef Massimo Mantarro drawing on fine ingredients with a light hand. The hotel is where the second season of The White Lotus was filmed, which makes it the most photographed table in town; book ahead if you want the terrace rather than the room.

Andreas Restaurant, opposite the entrance to the Villa Comunale, is the neighbourhood name worth knowing: Austrian-born, Taormina-based Andreas Zangerl cooks with a handful of excellent ingredients carefully paired, and the wine list is adequate for the room. It is less theatrical than the hotel dining rooms and suits a quieter evening.

Vineria Modì and Kisté: the younger end of the top end

Vineria Modì on via Calapitrulli is the most informal of the ambitious tables, run by Dalila and Ettore Grillo with only a few seats inside that spill out onto the street in summer. The kitchen is creative and personal without hotel formality, and the cellar focuses on natural and biodynamic bottles with an unusually long list of labels. It is the fine-dining room that feels least like a performance — book, because the covers are few.

Kisté Easy Gourmet is the informal offshoot of La Capinera, on via Santa Maria de' Greci, with first-rate ingredients worked into menus at a range of budgets and a small shop selling pantry goods to take away. Think of it as the flexible option: a lighter meal, an outdoor lounge for an aperitivo, or a place to pick up provisions. It is a useful fallback when the bigger names are full.

Street food and quick stops in the centre

Antica Rosticceria Da Cristina is the reliable quick stop for hot arancini, small pizzas and fried snacks to eat on the move. Order the arancino al ragù, the rice ball filled with meat sauce, and the pistachio version made with Bronte pistachios from the slopes of Etna. It is a lunch solution rather than a dinner, and exactly right between errands on the Corso.

Sikè Bistrot Siciliano belongs to the cheaper, more casual end of the town's eating, alongside the pastry shops and rosticcerie, and suits a light lunch rather than a full sitting. For a wider sweep of arancini, fried snacks and on-the-go options, our street food in Taormina guide covers the ground in detail.

Granita, cannoli and the pastry shops

Breakfast in Taormina means granita, the finely crushed flavoured ice served with a brioche col tuppo for dipping. Bam Bar is the name most associated with it in town and the place to start the day properly before the Corso fills up. Our granita in Taormina guide compares the versions worth ordering across town.

For cannoli and pastries, Pasticceria Minotauro dal 1979 and Laboratorio Pasticceria Roberto both appear among the recommended sweet stops, and the cannoli at Roberto is the one to seek out as a late-afternoon reward. Order one filled to order rather than pre-filled if you can — the shell should still crack. Our pastry shops in Taormina guide covers the counters to browse along the Corso.

If you would rather sit down for breakfast than stand at a bar, our breakfast in Taormina guide maps out the cafés that open early enough before a day of walking. For ice cream later, the best gelato in Taormina covers the gelaterie worth a detour.

Aperitivo and where to sit for it

Aperitivo in Taormina is largely about the terrace, and Bar Timeo, Bar Sant'Andrea and Blue Sky Bar are among the addresses cited for the view as much as the drink. Palazzo Vecchio rounds out the list for a pre-dinner spritz or a glass of something local before a late table. Go early in high season; the good seats fill first.

Bar Turrisi, up in Castelmola above the town, is a different proposition entirely and worth the climb for the novelty. It is a short trip, not a night out, so pair it with a late afternoon rather than a full evening.

What to eat in Taormina beyond the restaurants

Beyond the individual tables, a few dishes define the town: caponata, the sweet-and-sour aubergine dish of Spanish origin that shows up on most menus; arancini in their ragù and pistachio forms; granita with brioche at breakfast; and cannoli as the afternoon sweet. These are the plates to order when you are choosing between one restaurant and another.

The town's cooking is layered by the cultures that passed through — Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans — which is why you find Norman-era salt cod alongside Arab-imported citrus and spices. That history explains the range on a single menu: fried fish, sweet-sour vegetables and pasta with sardines can all appear together.

If you want to cook some of this rather than only eat it, cooking classes in Taormina often start with a visit to the fish market to choose the day's catch before a hands-on session. It is a practical way to make sense of what you have been eating all week. If you are weighing up the same decision elsewhere in the country, our Italy guide to choosing a cooking class, Cooking Classes in Italy: How to Choose the Right One, applies the same test to other regions.

Corso Umberto or the side streets: how to choose

The Corso Umberto is where the pastry shops, rosticcerie and the most visible restaurants sit, and it is convenient but the most tourist-facing part of town. The best value usually lies one or two lanes off it, in the vicoli where the osterie keep their tables. Walk ten minutes away from the main drag before committing to a menu.

The trade-off is atmosphere versus convenience. A table on the Corso gives you the passing scene and easy access to everything; a side-street osteria gives you quieter cooking and better value. Decide which matters more for that particular evening, then book accordingly.

If you are also thinking about pizza in town, Best Pizza in Taormina covers the pizzerias worth knowing for a casual family meal.

Booking, timing and summer crowds

In high season, the ambitious dining rooms and the smaller osterie both need reserving ahead: the hotel restaurants are the most heavily booked, and even a small trattoria can fill on a warm evening. Book the fine-dining night first, then build the rest of the trip around it. Walk-ins work for street food, granita and the rosticcerie, which is half the pleasure of a Taormina morning.

Prices vary widely by category, from the inexpensive rosticceria to the most formal tasting menus, so choose your budget band before you book rather than after. For a change of scene, the best restaurants in Arezzo and the best restaurants in Alghero follow the same logic of matching the table to the occasion.

Which Taormina table should you book first?

Book one fine-dining evening first — St. George for formality, Vineria Modì for something warmer — then leave the rest of the week to the trattorias on the side streets. Put Tischi Toschi and Osteria RossoDiVino on the shortlist for honest Sicilian cooking, and reserve Trattoria Da Nino for a frittura mista when you want substance without ceremony.

Keep one evening for the coast at Spisone or Mazzarò, where La Capinera and Blum make the journey down worth it. Fill the gaps with arancini from Da Cristina, granita at Bam Bar and cannoli from Roberto, and the town will feed you well at every hour of the day. For a hands-on morning, our Cooking Classes in Taormina guide pairs a market visit with the kitchen.