The best small towns with a serious restaurant in Lombardia
Lombardia eats richly and quietly. This is butter and rice country, risotto stirred loose with Carnaroli from the Pavese paddy fields, pizzoccheri heavy with Valtellina Casera and sage, salami cured slow in the Oltrepò hills, lake fish split and grilled and served with olive oil pressed on the western shore of Garda. The building stone changes with the province: grey Moltrasio limestone by Como, plaster and terracotta across the flat rice plain, dark timber balconies in the mountain villages. Autumn is the season that rewards a driver most, when the vines turn in the Oltrepò and the first agnolotti and boiled meats appear on menus, though spring on the lakes brings asparagus and the shutters opening again.
Most people who come to eat in Lombardia eat in Milan. That is reasonable enough, since the city holds more starred kitchens than anywhere else in the country and a dining room to suit every kind of evening, but it also means booking weeks out, tables turned twice a night, and a bill that reflects the postcode as much as the cooking. The same crowd files through the design district and the Navigli, and the region shrinks to a few streets.
The kitchens do not stop at the ring road. Follow the canals south into the rice fields, or the lake roads north where the water narrows between mountains, or the mule tracks up into the Valtellina, and the cooking gets more local rather than less ambitious. The towns below are the small ones, places with a piazza and a church and one dining room that the hardest of the guides thought worth naming. Fewer people make the drive, which is generally the point.
Of the 65 communes we have mapped in Lombardia, 26 qualify as towns with a serious restaurant: each holds a restaurant listed by the most demanding of the dining guides. This list is the small ones, 10 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Madesimo, has 507 residents.
Elsewhere in the catalogue: The 6 prettiest small villages that eat well in Lombardia and The best small lake towns that eat well in Lombardia.
Madesimo
Why visit Madesimo
The village sits at the head of Valle Spluga, near enough to the Splügen Pass and the Swiss border that it counts as the most northerly commune in Lombardia. A funicular drops six kilometers down the valley to Campodolcino, climbing on the return to the Motta high station at 1,723 meters, the link that ties the two settlements into a single ski domain rather than two separate villages sharing a road.
Most of the resident population, 507, works in winter tourism, and the rhythm of the place follows the lifts as much as the calendar. Summer changes the traffic rather than the terrain: hikers replace skiers on the way up to the Laghi d'Emet and the high passes toward Switzerland, where the air is clean enough that the Pizzo Stella is visible from the village square on most days.
A small year-round population supporting a domain built for winter, and a valley oriented so squarely toward the high ground that even the summer view looks toward the peaks rather than back down the valley, is what the geography of Madesimo comes down to.
Il Cantinone have been named by a guide.
What to see in Madesimo
- Comprensorio sciistico Madesimo. Ski domain from 1,550 to 2,880 meters across 30 runs, served by the funicular link to Motta and the lifts on the peak above the village.
- Canalone Stretto. A steep natural couloir on Pizzo Groppera, the kind of line where the marked piste ends and the descent is left to the skier's own judgment of the snow.
- Cascata del Groppera. Waterfall on the upper Liro near the village, fed by glacier meltwater from the massif above.
How to get to Madesimo
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Monza is roughly 147 minutes away by road.
Our tip
December through March is the season Madesimo was built for. Lifts open in early December, snow falls reliably above 1,500 meters, and the funicular from Campodolcino runs daily through to mid-April in good years. June through September is the alpine summer: the trails to the Laghi d'Emet and the passes toward Switzerland clear by mid-June, and at 1,550 meters even August afternoons stay below 22 degrees.
Varenna
Why visit Varenna
Varenna sits on the eastern shore of Lake Como at the point where the lake forks into the Como and Lecco branches, opposite Bellagio and Menaggio. Local fishermen founded the village in 769.
In 1126 it was destroyed by Como during the wars between the lake's communes, and in 1169 it absorbed the refugees from the destroyed Isola Comacina. The streets fall in a steep grid toward the water, with the lakefront passerella running between the houses and the lake.
The Castello di Vezio, above the village on a spur reached by a 30-minute climb, was a Lombard watchpost reused through the Middle Ages. Villa Monastero, on the lakefront, started in the 12th century as a Cistercian convent and now runs a two-kilometer botanical garden along the shore.
The frazione of Fiumelatte hosts one of the shortest rivers in Italy, 250 meters from spring to lake.
Hosteria del Platano, Visteria have been named by a guide.
What to see in Varenna
- Castello di Vezio. Lombard-era watchpost on a spur above the village, reached by a 30-minute climb with 160 meters of elevation gain.
- Villa Monastero. Former 12th-century Cistercian convent on the lakefront, now a museum and convention center with a 2-kilometer botanical garden along the shore.
- Villa Cipressi. Sixteenth-to-nineteenth-century lakefront villa next to Villa Monastero, with terraced gardens descending to the water.
How to get to Varenna
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Monza is roughly 62 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the working season. The ferries from Bellagio and Menaggio run frequently, the villa gardens open in late March, and the lake stays mild enough to swim from June onward. July and August are crowded: 693 residents host thousands of day visitors, and the lakefront fills with photo tripods at sunset.
Morimondo
Why visit Morimondo
Morimondo sits at 109 meters above sea level on the eastern edge of the Ticino Valley Park, twenty-five kilometers southwest of Milano. The village owes its name and its existence to the Abbey of Santa Maria di Morimondo, founded in 1134 by Cistercian monks sent from the mother house of Morimond in Burgundy.
The community moved in on 11 November 1136, the first Cistercian foundation in Lombardy. Construction on the abbey church began in 1182 and continued until 1296, an evolution from Romanesque toward early Gothic that the abbey still wears in its brick walls.
The introduction of the commendatory system in 1450 sent the community into decline; Giovanni de' Medici, later Pope Leo X, sent eight monks from Settimo Fiorentino in 1499 to revive it. Saint Carlo Borromeo turned the abbey into a parish in 1564, and the French suppression of 1798 dispersed the library's illuminated manuscripts.
The village around the cloister remains small, 1,007 residents, with rice fields, the Naviglio Grande and the Ticino woods on three sides.
Trattoria di Coronate have been named by a guide.
What to see in Morimondo
- Abbazia di Santa Maria di Morimondo. Cistercian abbey founded in 1134, with a church begun in 1182 and finished in 1296, cloister, chapter house and refectory of the original complex.
- Borgo abbaziale. Small medieval village around the abbey, with brick houses, the old monastic mill and the buildings that grew up to serve the community.
- Parco del Ticino. Regional natural park covering the woods, rice fields and oxbow lakes along the river west of the village, walkable from the abbey gate.
How to get to Morimondo
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Milano is roughly 60 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Morimondo earns. The Po Valley around the abbey is green and walkable, the rice paddies of the Ticino fill and drain, the abbey brick warms in afternoon light. July and August bring humid heat and mosquitoes in the rice country, with temperatures crossing thirty-two degrees on bad weeks.
Torno
Why visit Torno
Torno sits on the eastern shore of Lake Como, five kilometres north of the city of Como and forty-five from Milan. The village climbs in narrow lanes from the small port up the steep slope behind it, a core compact enough to cover on foot in fifteen minutes.
Above the village stands a second, older church, its marble portal carved by the Maestri Comacini in the 16th century, a quieter counterpart to the more elaborate church below near the port. The church nearer the port was first mentioned in 1208, in correspondence between Pope Innocent III and the abbot of Sant'Abbondio of Como, and its Romanesque bell tower predates the rest of the structure, including the rose window, frescoes and 1480 portal added later.
Outside the built-up part of the village, at the lake edge, the villa grounds hold the spring at the centre of the town's reputation, and the villa itself has passed through a long list of owners since it was built. The village, in other words, is arranged around two poles: a compact inhabited core stacked on the hillside above its harbour, and an isolated lakeside property outside it that has drawn attention, scientific and otherwise, for far longer than the village itself has been documented.
Il Sereno Al Lago, Al Lago del Sereno Hotel have been named by a guide.
What to see in Torno
- Chiesa di Santa Tecla. Romanesque-Gothic church first documented in 1208, with a Gothic rose window, statue niche and entrance dated 1480.
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista. Romanesque parish church above the village, with a marble portal carved by the Maestri Comacini in the 16th century.
- Villa Pliniana. Villa at the lake's edge built by Giovanni Anguissola, its grounds enclosing the spring that rises and falls on a rhythm Pliny the Younger recorded and that later drew Leonardo to study it.
How to get to Torno
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Monza is roughly 56 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is Torno's open season. Spring brings the Pliniana gardens into bloom and the rhythmic spring back to its summer pattern. May and June are the cleanest months for the lake light and the walk up to San Giovanni Battista.
Limone sul Garda
Why visit Limone sul Garda
Limone sul Garda sits on the western shore of Lake Garda at the foot of vertical limestone cliffs, the northernmost commercial lemon-growing town in the world at almost 46 degrees north. The Latin limes, meaning border, gave the place its name; the Bettoni counts gave it its industry.
From the seventeenth century, limonaie, stone-pillared greenhouses heated and covered through winter, allowed lemons to be exported to Austria, Germany, Poland and Russia. The road to Riva del Garda, the Gardesana Occidentale, was carved into the cliff and finished in 1932; until then the town reached the outside world by boat or mule track.
In 1974 a Milanese pharmacologist traced a mutant apolipoprotein, ApoA-1 Milano, to a single eighteenth-century resident, Giovanni Pomarelli. Roughly forty of his descendants in town carry the variant, which suppresses cardiovascular disease and helps a handful of residents past one hundred.
Senso Lake Garda Alfio Ghezzi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Limone sul Garda
- Limonaia del Castèl. Restored seventeenth-century lemon greenhouse on stone pillars above the lake, demonstrating the heated wooden cover that protected the trees through winter.
- Chiesa di San Benedetto. Eighteenth-century parish church on the lake front, with a single nave and Baroque altars rebuilt over an older medieval foundation.
- Centro storico. Tight grid of stone alleys between the old harbour and the cliff, with narrow porticoes that survive from the pre-road fishing and citrus village.
How to get to Limone sul Garda
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Trento is roughly 57 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months that suit Limone. The lake holds spring temperatures, the lemons flower, the cliff above the town keeps morning shade until noon. July and August fill the lakefront and the cycle path, with peak crowds on weekends drawn from Verona, Milano and German-speaking Europe.
Cassinetta di Lugagnano
Why visit Cassinetta di Lugagnano
The commune was formed from two older settlements on opposite banks of the canal: Lugagnano, Roman in origin and once called Lucanianus, and Cassinetta, dating to the fourteenth century. The humpbacked bridge that joins them carries the 1584 statue of San Carlo Borromeo.
The town sits at 120 meters, twenty kilometers west of Milan and just outside Abbiategrasso, on the route the Naviglio Grande traces between Milan and the Lago Maggiore, the reason Milanese nobility chose this stretch of water for their country houses from the sixteenth century on. That same 2007 decision to refuse new building and force reuse of existing stock brought the town into the Borghi più belli and Comuni Virtuosi networks.
A town built by families adding country houses along a single waterway, then choosing, four centuries later, to stop building and preserve what stands.
Antica Osteria del Ponte have been named by a guide.
What to see in Cassinetta di Lugagnano
- Villa Visconti Castiglioni Maineri. Formal Italian garden fronting the canal, partly attributed to Ruggero Bascapè.
- Villa Negri-Morosini. Country villa of the Negri-Morosini family on the canal bank, with frescoed interior rooms and outbuildings around a courtyard.
- Villa Trivulzio. Trivulzio family country residence, one link in the chain of aristocratic retreats strung along the water.
How to get to Cassinetta di Lugagnano
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Novara is roughly 37 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Cassinetta works best. The Naviglio runs full, the towpaths to Abbiategrasso and Robecco sul Naviglio are open to walkers and cyclists, and the villas keep regular visiting hours during the open garden seasons. July and August are humid on the plain; mosquitoes off the canal pick up in late afternoon and the towpath sun gets heavy without shade.
Gardone Riviera
Why visit Gardone Riviera
Gardone Riviera sits at 71 meters on the western shore of Lake Garda, in the province of Brescia. The lake here runs deep against the wall of Monte Pizzocolo, and the climate stays mild enough that lemons, olives and bamboo grow within walking distance of each other.
The town divides between the lakefront and the hill above it. Along the water, Gardone Sotto holds the promenade and harbour; above the centro storico, the ground rises toward the estate grounds and, further up, toward the garden that has drawn on the same mild hillside climate since the start of the twentieth century.
The boathouse on the estate holds a torpedo boat from a 1918 wartime raid, alongside the villa called the Prioria, an amphitheatre and a circular mausoleum. The garden above town spent six decades being arranged, one man working a single hillside into bamboo groves, alpine ravines, Japanese ponds and waterfalls.
The lakefront promenade carries the Bandiera Blu. What holds the town together is that division of altitude: a working lakefront below, and above it two hillside projects, one architectural and one botanical, each built slowly and by a single hand over decades on the same slope.
Il Fagiano, Osteria Antico Brolo, Villa Fiordaliso and 2 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Gardone Riviera
- Vittoriale degli Italiani. Nine-hectare hillside estate occupied by Gabriele D'Annunzio from 1922 to 1938, with villa, amphitheatre, mausoleum and the cruiser Puglia.
- Nave Puglia. Protected cruiser of the Regia Marina set into the slope above the lake, gifted to D'Annunzio in 1923 and assembled on land at the Vittoriale.
- Giardino Botanico Hruska (Heller Garden). Botanical garden begun around 1901 by Arturo Hruska, with bamboo, Japanese ponds, alpine ravines and waterfalls on a single hillside.
How to get to Gardone Riviera
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Brescia is roughly 53 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months western Garda works best. The Vittoriale grounds are walkable, the Heller Garden is in full bloom, and the ferry between Salò and Riva del Garda runs regular service. July and August fill the lakefront with day-trippers and the Vittoriale amphitheatre hosts its summer opera season; afternoons get warm but the lake breeze holds steady.
Varzi
Why visit Varzi
Varzi sits at 416 meters in the Staffora valley of the Oltrepò Pavese, a strip of Lombard Apennine that runs south toward Genova rather than north toward Milano. The name comes from the Ligurian root Var, meaning torrent.
In 1164 the village fell under the Malaspina, the Apennine feudal family who held it as part of their network of upland fiefdoms; the Malaspina tower, called the Torre delle Streghe, dates to the thirteenth century. The Via del Sale ran through Varzi from the Po plain to the Ligurian coast, and the salami invented to feed traders on that route is now one of Italy's first DOP cured meats: Salame di Varzi, recognized by Europe in 1996, produced by a handful of small companies in and around the town.
The 2023 production was 503,561 certified salami. The second Sunday in June, the Sagra del Salame fills the medieval streets.
The Sant'Alberto di Butrio hermitage, fourteen kilometers south through the Apennine, is the older religious anchor of the valley.
Buscone have been named by a guide.
What to see in Varzi
- Torre delle Streghe. Thirteenth-century Malaspina tower in the centro storico, also called the Witches' Tower, the surviving keep of the medieval defenses.
- Castello dei Malaspina. Remains of the Malaspina castle, the seat of the feudal family that held Varzi from 1164 onward.
- Centro storico medievale. Stone streets and arched passages of the medieval borgo, with the surviving village gates from the defensive walls.
How to get to Varzi
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Piacenza is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the right window for the Staffora valley. Mild evenings, dry trails into the surrounding Apennine, and the salami shops in full production. The Sagra del Salame on the second Sunday of June fills the centro storico. Festa della Birra e della Salamella falls in July.
Bellagio
Why visit Bellagio
Bellagio sits on the promontory that divides Lake Como into its three arms, the Como branch to the west and the Lecco branch to the east, with the upper lake running north. Paleolithic settlement traces date back 30,000 years, and an Iron Age castellum stood on the high point around 600 BC.
From the late 13th century the Visconti incorporated Bellagio into the Duchy of Milan. Villa Serbelloni was built in the 15th century on the site of an old razed castle and rebuilt several times; in 1788 Alessandro Serbelloni filled it with 17th- and 18th-century art, and in 1959 the Rockefeller Foundation took ownership, turning the villa into an international conference center.
Villa Melzi, built on the western shore by Francesco Melzi d'Eril (Vice President of Napoleon's Cisalpine Republic), made the village a fashionable summer station for Milanese nobility in the early 1800s.
Mistral, Alle Darsene di Loppia, La Punta have been named by a guide.
What to see in Bellagio
- Villa Serbelloni. Fifteenth-century villa on the high promontory, owned by the Rockefeller Foundation since 1959, with gardens open by guided tour only.
- Villa Melzi. Early 19th-century neoclassical villa built by Francesco Melzi d'Eril on the western shore at Loppia, with public botanical gardens along the lake.
- Punta Spartivento. Northern tip of the promontory where the lake splits in three, with a park, marina, and panoramic view up the Bellagio branch.
How to get to Bellagio
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Monza is roughly 55 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the season. April and May bring camellias and rhododendrons at Villa Melzi, the lake is mild but not warm, and the ferries run a partial timetable. June through August fills the village with day-trippers, the Salita Serbelloni packs by ten in the morning, and the lakeside trattorie reserve weeks ahead.
Teglio
Why visit Teglio
Teglio sits on the south-facing slope of the Valtellina, terraced vineyards dropping toward the Adda below the village and pine forest climbing behind it to the Orobie ridge. The Latin Tellina Vallis, valley of Teglio, gave the whole Valtellina its name, and the comune's own records reach back to the 9th century, when the village held the strategic centre of the valley.
The upper village keeps that older, defensive character; the vineyards and the valley floor below are where the food and wine culture of the place plays out, the two halves of the town facing different directions in what they do. Pizzoccheri, buckwheat tagliatelle with savoy cabbage, potato, garlic-and-butter sauce and casera cheese, has its official home here, and Teglio holds Cittaslow status on the strength of that food culture together with the terraced viticulture below the village.
A hill town that named a valley, still turned toward the river and the vines that keep its economy going, while its height and its records point back to why it was worth holding in the first place.
Fracia have been named by a guide.
What to see in Teglio
- Palazzo Besta. The courtyard cycle depicts Virgil's Aeneid; the upper salons hold further biblical and mythological scenes. The Antiquarium Tellinum inside holds Iron Age and Roman material from the valley.
- Accademia del Pizzocchero. The body that certifies trattorie and holds the recipe to its original form: buckwheat tagliatelle with savoy cabbage, potato, and a butter-garlic sauce alongside the cheese.
- Vigneti terrazzati della Valtellina. South-facing terraces stepping down toward the Adda, part of a viticultural landscape under UNESCO candidacy, producing Sforzato and Inferno Nebbiolo.
How to get to Teglio
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Brescia is roughly 142 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season at 856 metres — Palazzo Besta open daily, terraced vineyards green, and the Valtellina wine route in full operation. June and September are the best months for both architecture and wine: long warm light, fewer tourists than peak summer, and the Sforzato and Inferno harvests just preparing in September. July-August stay temperate at this elevation and the trattorie are at full pizzocchero output.
More from Anywhere Italy
- The 6 prettiest small villages that eat well in Lombardia
- The best small lake towns that eat well in Lombardia
- The 8 best small towns worth staying overnight in Lombardia
- The best towns with a serious restaurant that you can reach by train in Lombardia
The 10 best small towns you can reach by train in Lombardia
The best small towns inside a nature park in Lombardia