Cheap Eats in Como: Where to Eat Well on a Budget

Why eating cheaply in Como means knowing the two prices: waterfront and back street

Around the lake, Vanity Fair's pick of the lake's restaurants describes the trattorias of Moltrasio, Cernobbio and Careno as the classic, home-style end of the scale, and it names its one fine-dining address, Ristorante Materia in Cernobbio, at the opposite extreme. For the budget-conscious, those family trattorias are the places to aim for, and the Best Restaurants in Como guide maps the wider field.

Choose the trattoria rather than the ristorante when you want the everyday version of the local kitchen, and order the dishes that belong to the lake rather than the ones flown in. The saving comes from the style of the room and the simplicity of the cooking, not from a fixed waterfront premium.

Trattoria del Fagiano, Moltrasio: home-style cooking and generous portions at competitive prices

Trattoria del Fagiano in Moltrasio is the clearest budget pick in Vanity Fair's lake selection: it describes the cooking as casereccia, home-style, with abundant portions and competitive prices. The dining rooms are traditional, heavy on wood and copper pans on the walls, and the terrace outside is the better seat in good weather.

Order the way the menu is built: gnocchi, brasato (pot roast), risotto with perch or the fagiano itself. It is a proper trattoria meal in the sense that matters on a budget — a full plate of Lombard cooking rather than a composed plate — so a shared first course and one second is usually enough.

Onda, Cernobbio: pizza and simple Italian plates in a lively lakefront spot

Onda in Cernobbio is a restaurant, pizzeria and cocktail bar on the shore, popular with a young crowd and busy enough in the evening to feel like the centre of the village. The cooking is plain Italian across the board, from tuna sashimi to a veal cotoletta alla milanese, and the pizza section keeps to the basic styles. That combination makes it a good compromise when one person wants a full plate and another just wants a pizza.

Come for a pizza and a simple plate rather than a long dinner, in a lively room rather than a quiet one. If pizza is the whole point of the evening, the lakeside villages have plenty more options worth comparing, and the Best Pizza in Como guide sets out the city's pizzerias.

Una Finestra sul Lago, Carate Urio: southern Italian dishes and Neapolitan pizza alongside the lake menu

Una Finestra sul Lago in Carate Urio runs a menu that leans south: mussels alla tarantina, gnocco filled with buffalo mozzarella cream, scamone with potatoes and nduja, plus a list of Neapolitan pizzas. Four young partners run the place, and the terrace over the lake is the reason to come.

Order from the small-plates shelves of the menu and let the pizza be the meal: the Neapolitan list is the value route through a southern Italian carte, with the terrace over the lake as the reason to come.

Pizzas and cheap basics: what to order when you want a low-cost meal

Pizza is the most reliable low-cost meal around Como, whether you take it at a lakeside pizzeria or standing at a counter. Onda keeps its pizzas basic, Una Finestra sul Lago serves the Neapolitan style, and the city has enough pizzerias to eat it every day of a short trip.

Away from the lake, the Lombard basics are the other cheap route: polenta uncia, a soft polenta enriched with butter and cheese, and miascia, a savoury-sweet bread and fruit cake from the lake villages. Viaggiando Italia lists both among the specialties worth seeking out in and around Como.

Pasta at lunch is the third cheap option, and a plate of pasta at midday lets you keep the evening meal simple. Ask for the plate the kitchen turns around fastest and it will usually be the best-value order of the day.

Lake fish done plainly: risotto with perch and lavarello as a cheap taste of the local kitchen

Lake fish is the local cooking worth paying for, and it is also the cheapest way into cucina lariana, the lake's own kitchen: perch, lavarello (a freshwater white fish) and other catch from the water, cooked simply. Vanity Fair names risotto with perch among the defining dishes at the traditional trattorias, including Trattoria del Fagiano and Trattoria del Vapore in Cernobbio.

At Trattoria del Porto in Careno, a small trattoria with a balcony over the water, the menu runs from fish antipasti in carpione (marinated in vinegar) to risotto with perch and lavarello. A rice or pasta course built on lake fish is the lighter order, and the antipasto is made for sharing to start.

Viaggiando Italia lists lake fish among Como's specialties, alongside alpine cheeses, polenta uncia and miascia. Order a risotto or a fish pasta to taste the lake without buying a whole fish, and share an antipasto to start.

Lunch versus dinner: how to build a cheap eating day around Como

The cheapest day around Como starts with a coffee and a pastry standing at a café counter, moves to a pasta or pizza lunch and finishes with a trattoria dinner where the cooking is family-run. Breakfast is the meal where the city's cafés do the work, and standing at the bar rather than sitting at a table keeps it quick and inexpensive.

Lunch is the time to take a simple plate at a small osteria or a slice of pizza, because the trattorias on the lake are at their best in the evening. Dinner at Trattoria del Fagiano or Trattoria del Porto is then the main spend of the day, and a shared starter plus a pasta or risotto course each is enough.

If you want the view without the bill, take an aperitivo on the water in the late afternoon and eat later in the village. Lake Como keeps to the Italian rhythm, so the waterfront tables fill after the aperitivo hour and the back-street kitchens fill soon after.

What to drink without running up the bill

House wine by the glass or the quarter-litre carafe is the cheapest drink with a trattoria meal, and the lake's trattorias pour local Lombard wines alongside bottles from bigger cellars. A bottle shared between two is usually better value than two rounds of glasses, but only if you will finish it.

Water on the table is normally bottled and charged, still or sparkling, and a coffee after the meal is cheaper at the bar counter than at the table. If you plan a long lunch, order a single bottle of water and a shared carafe of wine and you will keep the drinks line modest.

Cover charge, water and bread: what can appear on the bill

In Como, as across Italy, the bill can include a coperto, a per-person cover charge that stands in for a service fee, and bread brought to the table may be charged separately. Neither is a trick; it is how the bill is built. Ask whether the coperto is per person before you order and you will not be surprised at the end.

The family-run trattorias, such as Trattoria del Porto in Careno, are small rooms, so book ahead when you know you want dinner there, especially in high season when the well-known lakeside tables fill up.

Ask about payment at the smallest places when you arrive, and keep a little cash for the pizzerias and bakeries where a quick slice is the meal.

Which cheap meal should you try first?

Try Trattoria del Fagiano in Moltrasio first, because it is the one place Vanity Fair singles out for competitive prices and generous home-style cooking. Follow it with a pizza at Onda in Cernobbio or a Neapolitan one at Una Finestra sul Lago in Carate Urio, and you have a cheap eating plan for a two- or three-day stay.

For everything else — the pasta lunch, the pastry counter, the gelato after dinner — pick the shop rather than the view, and keep the waterfront for a drink. That is the whole budget strategy in Como.