The prettiest villages with a serious restaurant in Lombardia
Lombardia eats well in ways that change every hour you drive. South of Milan the land flattens into rice and water, poplar lines and irrigation ditches, and the kitchens there cook risotto with frogs, with pike, with the ossobuco that gave the region its shorthand. Climb north and the stone changes to grey Alpine slate and the food goes to polenta taragna, casoncelli, bitto cheese aged in mountain huts. On the western shore of Garda the olives start, the lemon houses stand in wooden frames against the rock, and the season stretches long enough that you can sit outside in November. The building material tells you where you are: brick and plaster on the plain, sarnico stone in the valleys, pale lakeside render facing the water.
Almost everyone arriving in the region moves between Milan and Lake Como, and both are working at capacity. Bellagio in high summer is a queue for a ferry, Varenna a queue for a photograph of the same waterfront everyone else photographs, and the good tables around them book out weeks ahead at prices set by the view rather than the cooking. The Duomo terraces and the Navigli aperitivo strip absorb the rest. None of this is a fraud, but it is a small part of a large region, and the crowding is concentrated in a very few square kilometres.
The plain, the lakes and the hills all continue past those addresses. There are villages in Lombardia that have passed the national assessment of Italy's most beautiful borghi and also hold a restaurant that the most demanding guide in the country thought worth listing, which is a rarer overlap than it sounds. They sit along the Naviglio Grande, in the Oltrepò Pavese, above the Val Seriana and on the quieter stretches of Garda. Fewer people go, and the tables are easier to get.
Of the 65 communes we have mapped in Lombardia, 7 qualify as prettiest villages with a serious restaurant: each has passed the national assessment of Italy's most beautiful villages, and each holds a restaurant listed by the most demanding of the guides. The smallest, Morimondo, has 1,007 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best small towns with a serious restaurant in Lombardia and The 6 prettiest small villages that eat well in Lombardia.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Why visit Clusone
Clusone lies thirty-five kilometers northeast of Bergamo, seat of the upper Val Seriana mountain community. The first written record is a deed from 774 transferring the rocca from Charlemagne to the monks of Saint Martin of Tours.
Under Venice, from the late fifteenth century onward, the town reached its artistic and commercial peak, and it was in this period that both the fresco and the clock on the civic tower were made, a generation apart, for a town governed from the sea. The upper town holds the old civic core: the oratory and the basilica face each other across the square, with the civic palace and its tower a short walk off, and steps linking the frescoed houses between them.
Clusone was awarded city title by Napoleonic decree in 1801 and reconfirmed by the Republic in 1957. A mountain seat of government, twice granted city status under different regimes, that spent its wealthiest century decorating a single square with images of death and the measure of time.
Ristorante Mas-cì have been named by a guide.
What to see in Clusone
- Oratorio dei Disciplini. Medieval oratory of the Disciplini confraternity, its fresco covering the full façade above the entrance.
- Orologio Planetario Fanzago. Clock on the Torre Civica still tracking the sun, moon and zodiac, mounted high on the tower face over the square.
- Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. Seventeenth-century basilica across from the Oratorio, with a tall bell tower and Baroque interior at the heart of the upper town.
How to get to Clusone
Bergamo is roughly 44 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the open season in Clusone. The upper Val Seriana hills are walkable, the Oratorio façade is in clear light from late morning, and the Fanzago clock can be read from the piazza without winter glare. The Festa dell'Asparago in May and the summer concerts in Piazza Orologio fill the centro storico on weekends.
Why visit Curtatone
Curtatone is a Mantova commune of eight frazioni in the Parco del Mincio, with its seat at Montanara and its most visited fraction at Grazie. The Santuario della Beata Vergine delle Grazie was commissioned in 1406 by Francesco I Gonzaga and stands on the edge of the Mincio's lower bend, surrounded by lotus flowers that bloom across the river in July and August.
On 29 May 1848, Tuscan and Neapolitan volunteers held this stretch of ground against Austrian forces under Radetzky long enough for the Piedmontese army to reorganize at Goito the following day. The battle is remembered nationally as Curtatone e Montanara.
Every year around Ferragosto the Antichissima Fiera delle Grazie fills the square in front of the sanctuary; since 1973 the fair has hosted the Incontro Nazionale dei Madonnari, with over a hundred chalk artists working through the night on the pavement around the church.
Locanda delle Grazie, La Locanda delle Grazie have been named by a guide.
What to see in Curtatone
- Santuario della Beata Vergine delle Grazie. 1406 Gonzaga sanctuary on the Mincio bend, with a unique wooden ex-voto wall lining the nave, and the burial of Baldassarre Castiglione.
- Parco del Mincio. Riverine nature reserve around Grazie, with lotus flower expanses that bloom mid-July through August on the lower Mincio.
- Monument to the Battle of Curtatone and Montanara. Memorial to the 1848 stand by Tuscan and Neapolitan volunteers against Austrian forces under Radetzky on 29 May.
How to get to Curtatone
Verona is roughly 48 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Po-valley humidity stays bearable. April brings the Mincio in full water and the wetland birds along the parco. The lotus flowers around Grazie bloom from mid-July into August, a brief overlap with the heaviest summer heat, when temperatures climb past thirty-three degrees and the air thickens.
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