The best towns with a serious restaurant that eat well within 90 minutes of Verona
This is a corner of the Veneto and eastern Lombardy where the cooking changes every few kilometres. On the flat land towards Mantova it is pumpkin tortelli, sweet and sharp with mostarda, and slow-braised meat under a lid. On the lake it is whitefish and sardines dried in the sun, olive oil from groves that sit further north than almost any in Europe, and a pale Chiaretto poured cold. Climb into the Valpolicella hills and the stone farmhouses, the cherry orchards and the drying lofts for Amarone grapes set the register instead, heavier, autumnal, best from September onwards when the fog starts to settle in the vineyards.
Most people eat in Verona. The city has the arena, the Roman streets, the hotels and the wine bars along Via Sottoriva, and its best kitchens book out weeks ahead in festival season. Around Piazza Bra the tables are set for people who arrived that morning and leave the next, and the menus have been adjusted accordingly. It is a good city to eat in, but it is not a quiet one, and the price of a table reflects what the address is worth.
The vineyards, the lake and the river plain all continue past the ring road, and so do the serious kitchens. These are towns on the Garda shore, in the Valpolicella hills and out towards the Mincio where a chef has stayed put, sourced locally and been noticed for it. Fewer people go, the dining rooms are smaller, and the wine list tends to be the work of somebody who knows the growers by name.
Of the 15 communes we have mapped in within 90 minutes of Verona, 8 qualify as towns with a serious restaurant that eat well: each holds a restaurant listed by the most demanding of the guides, and a dining guide has named a table in each. The smallest, San Zeno di Montagna, has 1,464 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best lake towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Verona and The best towns with a serious restaurant in the province of Verona.
San Zeno di Montagna
Why visit San Zeno di Montagna
The village sits thirty kilometers northwest of Verona. It took its current name in 1871, after unification, borrowing the name of Verona's patron saint; before that it was called Montagna di Monte Baldo, a plainer name tied directly to the mountain above it.
Pastoralism here goes back to the Copper and Bronze ages, when small communities drove herds up from the plain in summer along routes that still cross the mountain. Sheep and goats gave way to cattle as the dominant economy in the seventeenth century.
The frazione of Prada, reached by cable car from the lakeshore, holds the longest of these pasture terraces, its Church of San Bartolomeo built for the shepherds who worked the ground seasonally rather than for a settled parish. Below, the chestnut groves that ring the village are a separate, older layer of the economy, worked at lower altitude while the herds went up.
What emerges is a village organized on a vertical axis: lake view at one elevation, chestnut groves at another, pasture and summer huts higher still, each belonging to a different rhythm of use rather than to a single center.
Taverna Kus have been named by a guide.
What to see in San Zeno di Montagna
- Balcone del Garda. The viewpoint that names the commune, a place to stand at the edge of the ridge and take in the water and the opposite shore at once.
- Monte Baldo. Regional park rising above the village, its slopes still worked as pasture, with the old herding paths climbing through it toward the grass terraces higher up.
- Prada. Three-kilometer grass terrace on the mountain, reachable by cable car from the lakeshore, with the Church of San Bartolomeo standing among the summer pasture huts.
How to get to San Zeno di Montagna
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Verona is roughly 51 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the months the commune works best. The chestnut groves green up in spring, the Baldo opens for walking, and the lake below stays cool enough to swim in by June. October brings the Festa delle Castagne over three weekends, with roasted Marrone di San Zeno and the woods turning to ochre and rust.
Brenzone sul Garda
Why visit Brenzone sul Garda
The comune sits on the eastern shore of Lake Garda at 75 meters, thirty-five kilometers northwest of Verona. It is not a town but a string of sixteen hamlets and small frazioni along the foot of the mountain: Assenza, Biaza, Campo, Castelletto, Castello, Magugnano which is the municipal seat, Marniga, Porto, Sommavilla and others, many named after the families who farmed the terraces above them.
Above the lake, fifteen minutes uphill on foot, sits the abandoned village, its stone houses reachable only by that path since the lakeside road below made the mid-slope route obsolete. Five permanent residents remain among the ruins.
The relation between the working shore strung with hamlets and the emptied village on the slope above is the story of the place: the road that connected the lake hamlets to each other was the same road that cut the mountain village off, and each half has stayed exactly where that change left it.
Nin, Al Pescatore have been named by a guide.
What to see in Brenzone sul Garda
- Campo di Brenzone. Reachable only on foot, with five permanent residents and stone houses standing in protected ruin.
- San Pietro in Vincoli, Campo. Church in the abandoned village, with frescoes by Giorgio da Riva dated 1358 still visible inside.
- Monte Baldo. Mountain ridge rising directly behind the lakeside hamlets to 2,218 meters at Cima Valdritta, with cable-car access from neighboring Malcesine.
How to get to Brenzone sul Garda
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Verona is roughly 73 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the only real season. April and May bring the lake back to swimming temperature; the olive groves are flowering and Campo di Brenzone walkable on dry trails. June through August fills the lakefront with German and Austrian visitors; the lungolago path runs at full capacity on weekend afternoons.
Costermano sul Garda
Why visit Costermano sul Garda
The commune sits on a moraine amphitheater twenty-five kilometers northwest of Verona. The hills were a feud of the Brescia monastery of Santa Giulia in the early Middle Ages, then passed through Scaliger and Venetian rule before joining Italy in 1866; the name sul Garda was added only in 2018, to anchor the town's tourism identity to the water it sits above rather than on.
That distinction matters here: this is not a lakefront village but a hill settlement looking down at the shore, its center, its cemetery hill, and its vineyard slopes arranged around the belvedere at Marciaga rather than around a harbor. The economy runs on olive oil and hillside vines, and on the holiday accommodation that has filled these slopes since the 1970s, but the single largest reason people come here is not agricultural.
The cemetery holds the dead of a war fought decades after the monastery's feud and centuries after the Scaliger lords, and it sits on the same morainal hill as the sanctuary, the parish church, and the vine rows, a place where the working landscape and the memorial landscape occupy the same short walk rather than separate zones.
La Casa degli Spiriti, Osteria dai Coghi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Costermano sul Garda
- Santuario della Madonna del Castello. Sanctuary on the spur of Marciaga, its fifteenth-century frescoes intact, with a terrace looking over Lake Garda and the eastern shore.
- Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof. The graves cover the hillside above the lake, laid out since 1967 for the dead of the Second World War, a place kept in silence rather than commentary.
- Chiesa di San Siro. Parish church rebuilt in the nineteenth century in the center of the village, its freestanding campanile visible from the surrounding slopes, with a sightline to Monte Baldo across the water.
How to get to Costermano sul Garda
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Verona is roughly 34 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the working window. April and May bring the lake back to swimming temperature on the shore four kilometers below, and the morainal hills into wildflower. June through August fills the holiday rentals and the lakefront day-traffic from Garda and Bardolino; the hills stay a few degrees cooler than the shore.
Bardolino
Why visit Bardolino
Bardolino sits on the eastern shore of Lake Garda at 65 meters, twenty-five kilometers northwest of Verona. The hills behind town have been planted with vines since the Roman period, and the modern DOC was granted in 1968.
Three grapes do the work: Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara. Long maceration produces Bardolino, the light red the town has lived on since the nineteenth century; short skin contact produces Chiaretto, the rosé that has overtaken the red in current sales.
Two churches hold the medieval line. San Zeno in the centro storico is ninth-century, one of the oldest in the province of Verona.
San Severo, built between the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries on the foundations of an earlier church mentioned in an 893 charter of Berengario, is the town's Romanesque anchor. The lakefront has been a tourist promenade since the 1950s.
The Palio del Chiaretto runs the first weekend of June; the Festa dell'Uva e del Vino runs the first week of October.
Il Giardino delle Esperidi, La Veranda del Color have been named by a guide.
What to see in Bardolino
- Chiesa di San Severo. Romanesque church built between the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries on the foundations of a structure mentioned in a 893 charter.
- Chiesa di San Zeno. Ninth-century church in the centro storico, one of the oldest in the province of Verona, on a Latin cross plan with a small apse.
- Centro storico. Walled medieval core around Piazza Matteotti, with arcaded streets dating to the Venetian period from the fifteenth century.
How to get to Bardolino
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Verona is roughly 36 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the working season. April and May bring the lake back to swimming temperature and the Romanesque churches at their quietest. June through August fills the lungolago with German and Austrian visitors; weekends are crowded, weekday mornings still manageable. Bardolino Freddo falls in August.
Sirmione
Why visit Sirmione
The peninsula runs four kilometers into the southern end of the lake, narrow enough that the old town occupies a triangle of land just over a mile long. Three low hills organize it: Cortine, San Pietro, and the rise at the tip where the Roman villa stands.
The fortress sits at the single entrance to the walled town, so the only way in by land passes through its gate, and the water it once enclosed as a fortified port is still shut in behind it. Past that gate the medieval streets are packed between the hills, and the ground rises toward the church at the highest point before falling away again toward the villa ruins at the peninsula's end.
The name attached to the villa is literary rather than archaeological: the poet's return in his thirty-first poem was to a family property on this tip of land, and nothing dug from the ground proves the two are the same place, but the name has held for a thousand years regardless. Maria Callas kept a villa here through the 1950s and 60s.
Between the enclosed water at one end and the hot spring at the other, the peninsula reads as a strip of land defined entirely by what edges it: lake on three sides, a gated approach on the fourth, and a history that settled into the name of a poem long before anyone could confirm it belonged there.
Caffè Grande Italia, Tancredi, La Rucola 2.0 and 2 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Sirmione
- Castello Scaligero. Fortress at the entrance to the old town, with a 37-meter keep and a fortified port still enclosing a piece of the lake.
- Grotte di Catullo. Villa complex built late first century BC to early first century AD, its ruins scattered across olive terraces at the tip of the peninsula.
- Terme di Catullo. Thermal spa drawing on the same mineral spring that surfaces offshore in Lake Garda.
How to get to Sirmione
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Verona is roughly 36 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the lake season. The Grotte di Catullo open with the spring archaeological calendar, the Scaligero is open year-round, and the peninsula promenade fills with day-trippers from Verona and the German A22 corridor. July and August are the heaviest months, with the old town packed between ten and seven; April, May, September and October are the easier months.
Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella
Why visit Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella
Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella sits at 174 meters in the heart of the Valpolicella DOC, fifteen kilometers northwest of Verona, on the rolling hills that close the eastern shore of Lake Garda. The commune groups five frazioni around the main village: Domegliara, Gargagnago, Monte, Ponton and the ridge settlement above them.
Gargagnago sits at the foot of the hills, its cellars closest to the valley floor; the ridge frazione occupies the higher limestone ground, reached by a climb steep enough to have earned the church its nickname. Between them the Serego Alighieri estate has worked the same parcels since Pietro Alighieri, son of Dante the poet who had followed his father into exile in Verona, bought the property in 1353, and the family still grows Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara there, with the Vaio Armaron Amarone counted among the appellation's cru benchmarks.
The pattern of the commune is one of a valley economy and a hill economy sharing a single administrative roof: wine pressed and aged below, an older, stiller settlement kept above it, with the quarries that once supplied Verona still worked on the slopes that join the two.
Dalla Rosa Alda, Masi Agricola have been named by a guide.
What to see in Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella
- Pieve di San Giorgio Ingannapoltron. Romanesque parish church whose ciborium columns carry an inscription naming the master builder Orso and his disciples Juventino and Juviano.
- San Giorgio di Valpolicella. Frazione on the limestone ridge above the valley, in the Borghi più belli d'Italia network, nicknamed Ingannapoltron for the steep climb up to it.
- Villa Serego Alighieri. Estate still owned by the Alighieri descendants; produces Vaio Armaron Amarone from Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara grown on the same parcels the family has worked.
How to get to Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Verona is roughly 34 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the months for Valpolicella. The vineyards green up in spring, harvest runs from mid-September into October, and the appassimento drying begins in the cellars while the leaves turn. July and August push past thirty degrees in the valley and the village empties between two and six in the afternoon; cellar visits move to morning slots.
Curtatone
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
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. 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.
Mantova
Why visit Mantova
Mantova sits at 19 meters on a peninsula in the Mincio, halfway between Milan and Venice. In the twelfth century the river was dammed into three artificial lakes, Superiore, di Mezzo and Inferiore, which still ring the city on three sides and worked as its defence for six centuries.
From 1328 to 1707 it was the seat of the Gonzaga. The Palazzo Ducale they assembled across that span covers 34,000 square meters between Piazza Sordello and Lago di Mezzo, with over a thousand rooms; the Camera degli Sposi, frescoed by Andrea Mantegna between 1465 and 1474, is the heart of that complex.
Outside the walls, Federico II Gonzaga commissioned Giulio Romano to build Palazzo Te between 1525 and 1535: a pleasure villa with the Sala dei Giganti, whose painted Olympus collapses on the viewer from every wall. Mantua and Sabbioneta were jointly inscribed by UNESCO in 2008.
The city was Italian Capital of Culture in 2016.
Lo Scalco Grasso, Sücar Brüsc, Il Cigno and 2 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Mantova
- Palazzo Ducale. Gonzaga ducal complex of 34,000 square meters between Piazza Sordello and Lago di Mezzo, with over a thousand rooms across four centuries of additions.
- Camera degli Sposi. Frescoed chamber by Andrea Mantegna inside the Palazzo Ducale, painted between 1465 and 1474, with an illusionistic oculus on the ceiling.
- Palazzo Te. Suburban pleasure villa built between 1525 and 1535 by Giulio Romano for Federico II Gonzaga, with the Sala dei Giganti and Sala di Amore e Psiche.
How to get to Mantova
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Verona is roughly 39 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Mantova works best. The lakes hold light all day, the Palazzo Ducale is walkable without summer queues, and the surrounding bike paths to Peschiera del Garda run sixty kilometers along the Mincio. July and August get humid and still on the plain, with mosquitoes off the lakes and afternoons that empty the centro storico. Festival della sbrisolona e dei dolci italiani falls in October.
More from Anywhere Italy
- The best lake towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Verona
- The best towns with a serious restaurant in the province of Verona
- The best towns you can reach by train within 45 minutes of Verona
The best lake towns within two hours of Bolzano- The best lake towns within two hours of Venice
- The 7 best small towns that eat well in Veneto