The best small coastal towns with a serious restaurant in Liguria
Liguria cooks with very little and gets a great deal out of it. Basil grown under glass near the sea, olives small enough to look like mistakes, salted anchovies, chickpea flour, and whatever came up in the nets that morning. The towns themselves are built of what the hills gave: slate lintels, painted plaster over stone, black and white pebble mosaics in the church squares. Late spring and September are the good months, when the water is still warm, the focaccia comes out of the oven at odd hours, and a table on the seafront can be had without a fight.
The default plan is the Cinque Terre, and in high summer the trains between the villages run full, the coastal path is queued, and lunch is eaten standing up out of a paper cone. Genoa absorbs the rest, with its caruggi and its fried fish counters, and it deserves the attention it gets. Both are worth going to. Neither is where you eat well slowly, at a proper table, with the sea a short walk away.
The coast keeps going in both directions. West past Savona and on towards the French border, east through the Golfo dei Poeti and up the Magra, the same rock and the same terraces carry smaller places that happen to hold serious kitchens. These are seafront towns where the restaurant is the reason to book the night, and where fewer people go looking for one.
Of the 54 communes we have mapped in Liguria, 23 qualify as coastal towns with a serious restaurant: each sits directly on the sea, and each holds a restaurant listed by the most demanding of the guides. This list is the small ones, 10 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Portofino, has 355 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best small towns with a serious restaurant that eat well within 90 minutes of Genova and The prettiest villages with a serious restaurant in Liguria.
Framura
Why visit Framura
Framura is not one village but five: Anzo on the water, Setta and Ravecca on the slope, Costa above them, and Castagnola at roughly 300 meters with views back down to the coast. The commune spans from the rocky shoreline to 845 meters inland on the ridge that separates the Cinque Terre coast from the Vara valley.
Byzantine settlers built the original circular watchtowers here against Saracen raids, three of them still standing on the coast and inland. The hamlets remained agricultural until the Genova-La Spezia railway tunneled through in the late nineteenth century, opening the commune to summer visitors.
The seafront below Anzo, reached by a converted railway tunnel turned cycle path, carries the Bandiera Blu, and the same path runs north toward Bonassola and Levanto. Framura is the quiet outlier on this coast: the closest Borghi più belli village to Monterosso al Mare without being in the Cinque Terre national park.
L'Agave have been named by a guide.
What to see in Framura
- Torri bizantine. Three surviving Byzantine watchtowers on the coast and ridge, built to defend the village from Saracen incursions.
- Castagnola. Highest of the five hamlets at around 300 meters, with views over the lower frazioni and the Riviera di Levante.
- Anzo waterfront. Coastal hamlet at sea level with the Bandiera Blu beach access, the lowest of Framura's five settlements.
How to get to Framura
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 59 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October fits Framura, with the cycle path open and the coast walkable in any direction. May, June and September are the best for combining sea and hiking; mid-summer brings the strongest beach traffic but the upper hamlets stay calm. The Bandiera Blu beachfront below Anzo is small and fills early on August weekends.
Laigueglia
Why visit Laigueglia
Laigueglia sits at six meters on the Riviera di Ponente, sheltered between the two headlands that frame the bay. The name comes from Aquilia, a reference to the Roman eagle standards, and the village grew from a settlement of fishermen who came over from neighboring Andora.
Genoa bought the borough in 1609. Through the seventeenth century the economy ran on shipbuilding and the coral trade, which drew Catalan fishermen to settle in numbers and left behind the Baroque churches that anchor the centro storico today: the parish church with its curved front, and the confraternity oratory with its carved choir and Piola altarpiece.
Behind the beach, the fishermen's grid still reads as caruggi, small squares opening to the sea, houses in pale violet and ochre, the seafront watchtowers standing at the edge where the town once kept watch for raiders by sea. What the coral money built, the town has simply gone on living inside.
Savô have been named by a guide.
What to see in Laigueglia
- Chiesa di San Matteo. The curved façade fronts a Baroque interior where the three altarpieces hang alongside furnishings paid for in the coral years, when the parish stood as the visible return on the fishery's money.
- Oratorio di Santa Maria Maddalena. 1616 oratory of the Confraternita dei Disciplinanti, with a carved wooden choir and an altarpiece by Domenico Piola.
- Centro storico. Fishermen's grid of caruggi behind the beachfront, with houses painted in the pale lilac and ochre traditional to the Ponente coast.
How to get to Laigueglia
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 85 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through June and September through October are the calmer summer-edge months on this coast. The Bandiera Blu beach is open, the sea is warm enough from June onward, and the centro storico is not yet packed. July and August bring crowds, especially from Piedmont and Lombardy, and the litoraneo fills shoulder-to-shoulder. Il Salto Dell'Acciuga falls in October.
Borgio Verezzi
Why visit Borgio Verezzi
Borgio Verezzi is two settlements stitched together in 1933 under a single comune in the province of Savona. Borgio sits on the coast at the mouth of the Bottassano stream.
Verezzi rises 200 meters up the Orera hill above it, four old boroughs of stone houses in the warm-pink local rock: Piazza, Roccaro, Crosa, and Poggio, each a cluster rather than a single center. The beach below has held the Bandiera Blu without interruption since 1989.
The two halves of the town read as coast and height rather than old and new: the lower village handles the shoreline and the flag it has kept for decades, the upper village keeps its stone streets and its square turned toward the sea view. What the pairing adds up to is a comune built from two working parts, a beach town below and a hill village above, joined by administration in 1933 but still legible as separate places.
Doc have been named by a guide.
What to see in Borgio Verezzi
- Grotte di Valdemino. Dated to 1933, the caves run through chambers where small underground lakes sit beneath the karst rock, the route winding through passages carved out over time.
- Piazza Sant'Agostino. Main square of Verezzi, framed by pink-stone houses with a view down to the sea. The village skyline serves as backdrop for the festival's summer stage.
- Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo. Neoclassical parish church built in 1789 on the foundations of the medieval Burgum Albinganeum castle, with a white façade and two bell towers.
How to get to Borgio Verezzi
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 69 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dry months on this stretch of the Riviera di Ponente. The beach at Borgio holds Bandiera Blu and the water warms into May. July and August are full: the coast road slows, the spiaggia fills with weekenders from Genova and Torino, and the theater festival runs in Piazza Sant'Agostino from early July to mid-August. Sagra della Lumaca falls in August.
Portofino
Why visit Portofino
Portofino occupies the smallest municipal territory in the Metropolitan City of Genova, 355 residents on a horseshoe harbor on the southern tip of the Portofino headland. The whole commune sits inside the Portofino Regional Natural Park and the Portofino Protected Marine Area.
Roman fortification stood on the hill above the harbor; the medieval Genoese fort took the name Castello di San Giorgio, was later renamed Castello Brown after the British consul who bought it in 1867. British and then northern European aristocrats discovered the village in the late nineteenth century.
Aubrey Herbert and Elizabeth von Arnim were among the early regulars. By 1950 tourism had replaced fishing as the main industry.
The Chiesa di San Giorgio, first built in 1154 and destroyed by a wartime bomb, was rebuilt in 1950 on the 1760 plans. The painted facades around the harbor are the photograph everyone takes.
The footpaths into the park behind the village are the reason to stay longer than the cruise day-trippers.
Piazzetta di Portofino, Cracco Portofino, DaV Mare have been named by a guide.
What to see in Portofino
- Castello Brown. Genoese coastal fort raised over a Roman site, renamed in 1867 after British consul Montague Yeats Brown, now a historic house museum above the harbor.
- Chiesa di San Giorgio. Church first built in 1154, destroyed in Second World War bombing, rebuilt in 1950 on 1760 plans, on the path up to Castello Brown.
- Faro di Portofino. Lighthouse at the tip of the Portofino headland, walking distance from the harbor along the Punta del Capo coastal path.
How to get to Portofino
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Genova is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Portofino
“A steep hill falls into the sea. The houses are crammed on the slope and painted in bright colors because they are old, packed tight, and need help. There is a small port if the cove allows it and a bigger port if the cove is generous. There is a small piazza around a small church, with maybe four restaurants, three bars, and a gelato place. There is no space for a grand square, because there is no space for grand anything in Liguria.”
Read our piece on Portofino →Tigullio Roadtrip | Four Versions of the Same Liguria
Our tip
May through June and September into October are the best months. The harbor is open, the park trails are dry, and the day-tripper rush from cruise ships is less intense than in midsummer. July and August fill the piazzetta from late morning to dusk, the ferry queues from Santa Margherita stretch to the seafront, and parking is closed to outside cars.
Riomaggiore
Why visit Riomaggiore
The village sits at the eastern end of the coastal line running out of La Spezia, first among the five reached along that route. It is documented from 1251, when the Carpena district swore allegiance to Genoa.
The castle went up first, begun in 1260 against pirate raids; the church followed in 1340 under Bishop Antonio Fieschi, its neo-Gothic front a much later addition from 1870, with a Maragliano crucifix still inside. The terraces above the rooftops are older than either building in continuous use, cut into the slope and worked without interruption long enough that the wine they produce carries the name of the method itself.
The built village is compact: castle and church above, the narrow harbour below at the water's edge, boats hauled onto the slipway between the breakwaters. Pixar set Luca here in 2021, lightly disguised as Portorosso.
Roughly 2.5 million annual visitors now reach a commune of 1,326 residents, a ratio that says as much about the place as any single monument: a fishing settlement of one street and one slipway, built to hold far fewer people than now pass through it, sized against a public many times its own population.
Rio Bistrot, Fuori Rotta have been named by a guide.
What to see in Riomaggiore
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista. Built in 1340 under Bishop Antonio Fieschi, rebuilt with a neo-Gothic façade in 1870, holds a wooden crucifix by Anton Maria Maragliano.
- Castello di Riomaggiore. Begun in 1260 by the Marchesi Turcotti against pirate raids, completed by Genoa two centuries later, twin cylindrical towers above the village.
- Via dell'Amore. The path clings to the cliff face between two villages, the sea directly below and the rock wall pressing close on the other side.
How to get to Riomaggiore
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Pisa is roughly 134 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Riomaggiore
“The Cinque Terre are five towns with a national park around them and a marketing name that adds up to five. The copies without the name are a few miles away in either direction, and the experience they sell is the same experience, with the crowd divided by a hundred.”
Read our piece on Riomaggiore →Cinque Terre | How To Do It Right
Our tip
April through June brings the green window before the crowds: terraces in flower, train arrivals manageable, the Sentiero Azzurro walkable end to end. September and October are the dry months, harvest on the slopes above the village. July and August are hard.
Monterosso al Mare
Why visit Monterosso al Mare
The village splits into two halves on either side of a headland: the older centro storico and, on the other side, the Fegina seafront where the railway runs behind the sand. The Capuchin convent looks out over both sides from that same headland, the hinge on which the whole layout turns.
Above the rooftops, at 464 meters, a hilltop sanctuary has stood on the same ground since 740, older than the village below it and the oldest Marian site in Liguria. The parish church down in the old town, banded in black and white marble, was built centuries later, so the two put a long stretch of the coast's religious history on display within sight of each other.
Montale's villa stood in Fegina, and the rocks and cliffs he carried into Ossi di seppia are the same ones visible from either half of the village. The geography here is the story: a headland dividing old from new, and a hillside holding the older of the two by several centuries.
Da Miky, L'Ancora della Tortuga, Buranco have been named by a guide.
What to see in Monterosso al Mare
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista. Parish church built 1282-1307 with a black-and-white-banded marble façade and a fresco of the baptism of Christ over the main portal.
- Santuario di Nostra Signora di Soviore. Hilltop sanctuary at 464 meters above the village, occupied by a church since 740, the oldest Marian site in Liguria.
- Convento dei Cappuccini. Seventeenth-century Capuchin convent on the San Cristoforo headland, separating the centro storico from Fegina.
How to get to Monterosso al Mare
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the workable months. The Sentiero Azzurro is open, the sea warms from late May, and the village still moves at a manageable pace. July and August are difficult: the Cinque Terre regional system caps walking-path tickets but the centro storico still saturates, and trains arrive standing-room from La Spezia. Festa del Limone falls in May.
Ameglia
Why visit Ameglia
The Magra was the Roman Macra, the eastern boundary of Liguria, and the hill at Ameglia stands on the border between Lunigiana and the Riviera where that river reaches the sea. Genoa bought part of the fief in 1141, the bishops took it back by 1284, and Castruccio Castracani of Lucca conquered it in 1321: a small fortress passed between larger powers for three and a half centuries before it settled into the shape it now has.
The marina at the river mouth is a separate world from the hill town above it. Where the castle and its concentric streets sit on the summit, the frazione at the water is a former fishing village, flat, tied to the tide and to summer moorings rather than to the bishops who once held the heights.
The two headlands south of that marina are reachable only by boat or steep footpath, cut off from the estuary settlement by their own geography rather than by distance. The town, in effect, is two places joined by the same river: a fortified height that answered to Luni and Genoa, and a working shoreline that answered to the sea.
Pescarino-Sapori di Terra e di Mare, LUV Ristorante have been named by a guide.
What to see in Ameglia
- Castello di Ameglia. Rebuilt in 1174 on a tenth-century footprint, episcopal fortress of the bishops of Luni, cylindrical keep above the Magra estuary.
- Centro storico di Ameglia. Concentric medieval streets around the castle, twelfth and thirteenth-century houses with stone arches and external staircases.
- Bocca di Magra. Old fishing village and marina at the river mouth, summer mooring for small craft, departure point for Punta Corvo by sea.
How to get to Ameglia
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Pisa is roughly 60 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Ameglia
“It has the best panorama in Liguria, full stop, and I do not think it is close. The reasons are two. The first is the obvious one. You are 266 meters up, the cliff is high enough that there is no rocky beach below to draw a crowd, the sea on one side is the Gulf of La Spezia with Portovenere across the water and the Cinque Terre fading north, and the view on the other side is the Magra running into its delta with the white Apuane behind it and Tuscany beyond.”
Read our piece on Ameglia →Magra Delta Roadtrip | A Tagine, a Lighthouse, and a Dead Roman City
Our tip
April through June and September to October bring the river's best months: clear estuary water, the headland walks down to Punta Corvo manageable, marinas at Bocca di Magra not yet at summer capacity. July and August fill the river mouth with summer boats from across the Gulf of Poets, and the road down from the borgo backs up on weekends. The Sagra del Pesce in mid-August draws thousands. Mercato Settimanale Di Ameglia falls in August.
Dolceacqua
Why visit Dolceacqua
The village sits twenty kilometers from the French border and nine inland from Bordighera, in the Val Nervia. The river of the same name splits it into two: the older Terra on the left bank, its lanes stepping up toward the castle, and the newer Borgo on the right, where the parish church stands.
The bridge is what makes the two halves legible as one village rather than two settlements facing each other across water. The Doria held the fief from 1270, traded it with the Savoy, the French and the Spanish, and let the castle go by the mid-eighteenth century, so what remains above the rooftops is a ruin rather than a seat of power.
The surrounding hills still work, producing Rossese di Dolceacqua. In January, the Festa di San Sebastiano carries a laurel tree hung with consecrated wafers through the lanes of both banks.
The village, in other words, is still organized exactly as Monet found it in 1884: a river, two banks, and a bridge between them, with the working hillside and the ruined fortress as the constants either side of the water.
CASAeBOTTEGA, A Viassa, Casa e Bottega have been named by a guide.
What to see in Dolceacqua
- Ponte Vecchio. Thirty-three meters across the river, the span that carried Monet's eye from the water up to the fortress above. It is what joins the village's two banks into one place.
- Castello dei Doria. Ruined above the rooftops, with a partial restoration underway. The climb up through the old quarter ends at its walls, looking back down over both halves of the village.
- Terra. Older half of the village on the left bank, a vertical network of carruggi climbing under arched passageways to the castle.
How to get to Dolceacqua
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Genova is roughly 130 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings green hills, mild evenings, and the first Rossese tastings in the cellars along the road to Apricale. July and August are warmer than the coast, often 30 degrees in the riverbed; the village stays cool inside the carruggi but full of day-trippers from Bordighera and Ventimiglia. September is dry and clear, the best month for the bridge in the afternoon light.
Noli
Why visit Noli
Noli sits at four meters on the Riviera di Ponente, fifty kilometers southwest of Genoa. From 1192 to 1797 it was an independent maritime republic, the fifth alongside Genova, Pisa, Venezia and Amalfi, holding the Capo Noli headland and a stretch of coast under its own flag and protected by alliance with Genoa.
The medieval walls still ring the centro storico, and the survivors of an original eight defensive towers still rise above the rooftops, including the Torre dei Quattro Canti and the Torre Papone. Outside the walls stands the Basilica di San Paragorio, an eleventh-century Romanesque church and one of the most important early medieval buildings in Liguria, with a wooden crucifix from the twelfth century and a bishop's throne carved into a single block of stone.
The Capo Noli cliffs end the bay to the south, with footpaths leading to grottos and a hermitage in the rock. The litoraneo carries the Bandiera Blu.
Vescovado, Il Vescovado have been named by a guide.
What to see in Noli
- Basilica di San Paragorio. Eleventh-century Romanesque church outside the walls, with a twelfth-century wooden crucifix and a bishop's throne carved from a single block.
- Torre dei Quattro Canti. Surviving medieval defensive tower inside the walled centro storico, one of eight that originally ringed the maritime republic.
- Torre Papone. Second medieval tower of the original defensive ring, still standing above the rooftops of the centro storico.
How to get to Noli
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Genova is roughly 58 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through June and September through October are the right months for Noli. The sea is warm enough from late May, the walls of the centro storico keep the streets shaded, and the coastal path to Capo Noli is walkable without midday heat. July and August fill the beach and the limited parking on the coastal road; the rest of the village stays calmer than the Bandiera Blu litoraneo. La Repubblica del Gusto falls in June.
Celle Ligure
Why visit Celle Ligure
Celle Ligure sits at sea level on the Riviera di Ponente, ten kilometers west of Savona. The Aleramici marquises gave the lands to a Piedmontese monastery in 1014; the Genovese families took them over within a generation.
Pope Sixtus IV's family came from here. The lower town runs along the lungomare, with Piazza dei Mille at its center, while the centro storico sits behind it as a borgo of narrow caruggi, one of the Borghi più belli d'Italia.
A handful of artisan kilns still work these streets, ceramic shop signs marking the buildings where the trade continues. The parish church stands within this old town, its façade carrying the ceramic Assumption by Lucio Fontana, San Michele defeating the dragon rendered in the same medium the town has fired since the seventeenth century.
The pieces read as one place rather than several: a fishing and beach economy along the shore, a ceramic trade worked into the old quarter behind it, and a native artist's public commission set into the church that anchors both.
Meta Ristorante have been named by a guide.
What to see in Celle Ligure
- Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo. Inside, a Via Crucis by Caminati hangs alongside ceramic stations by Emanuele Luzzati, a pairing of local ceramic craft with the Fontana work on the façade outside.
- Centro storico. Borgo of narrow caruggi behind the lungomare, with active artisan ceramic workshops and ceramic shop signs on the buildings themselves.
- Spiaggia di Celle Ligure. Sand and gravel beach that forms the basis of the town's summer economy, backed by the lungomare and the old town behind it.
How to get to Celle Ligure
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Genova is roughly 40 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dry months on this stretch of the Ponente. The sea warms enough for swimming by late May. July and August are full: the lungomare slows, the beach establishments fill with weekenders from Torino, and the Aurelia stays clogged from Albisola to Varazze on Friday afternoons.
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