Trip
Italy 2024
Location
Date
September 20, 2024
At the end of a trip we like going through the trip and finding the bests of trip based on the best we’ve experienced in each city’s we’ve stayed in. Categories can change from one trip to the next; for our Italian trip we’ve decided to do it for five categories: Breakfast, Dinner, Gelato, Coffee, Hiking.
🏆 Winners
🍳 Breakfast
🍽️ Dinner
🍨 Gelato
☕️ Coffee
🥾 Hiking
Contenders in for cities
To help anybody using the notes from our trip. We’ve decided to keep a list of contenters we considered for each of the city.
Zurich 🇨🇭
- 🍳Breakfast: Babu’s brunch (fixed menu) is great. Do reserve!
Lugano 🇨🇭
- 🍳 Breakfast: Aqua & Farina as napolitan style margherita pizza perfectly cooked is an awesome breakfast.
- 🍽️ Dinner: Osteria Trani won for Lugano thanks to the octopus and the white wine.
- 🥾 Hiking: Mont Brè best views and most accessible trail we’ve done in the region.
Bellagio 🇮🇹
- 🍳 Breakfast: Mr. Panino for the crisp panini and cookies
- 🍽️ Dinner: Trattoria San Giacomo
- 🍨 Gelato: Gelateria del Borgo which offered a good distribution of flavours and kept the smooth texture.
- 🥾 Hiking: Bellano to Varrena while really the only hike we’ve done there it does offer great views.
Stresa 🇮🇹
- 🍳 Breakfast: Gigi’s Bar
- 🍽️ Dinner: Il Vicoletto
- 🍨 Gelato: L'angolo del Gelato offering versions with chunks of flavours (caramel pieces, nuts chunks, …) that we don’t see that often or well executed.
Venice 🇮🇹
- 🍽️Dinner: al CoVino thetiny restaurant with about 18 seats and an open kitchen. The chef can talk each of his ingredient in details including how confident he his that the flour he uses has never looked at a nut in its life (I’m allergic to nuts, this increased my level of confidence in the restaurant ten folds). The dishes are small and come in three themes: fish, meat and garden. The chef also offers a chef’s menu in either fish or meat. Everything was excellent, the experience is a must.
- 🍽️ Dinner runner up: Ai Mercati (really a close second to CoVino) with its great execution, outside seating on the plaza.
- ☕️ Coffee: Caffè del Doge offered a menu of single origin and executed two different origin very well.
Milan 🇮🇹
- 🍳 Breakfast: Obicà debatable for a breakfast place but the gran degustazione is a great cheesy breakfast.
- 🍽️ Dinner: Cantina Piemontese
- ☕️ Coffee: Nowhere Cafe both the coffee and the food were top tier. Don’t miss the cinnamon buns
Monterosso 🇮🇹
- 🍽️Dinner: Ristorante Ciak for their gnocchi al pesto genovese is the not to miss meal.
- 🥾Rando: Cinque Terre from Monterosso al Mare to Riomaggiore offeres the better views and is well maintained. There can be crowds so pick your moments.
Firenze 🇮🇹
- 🍨 Gelato: Edoardo il gelato biologico has just the best flavours and texture
- ☕️ Coffee: Ditta Artigianale
- 🍽️ Dinner: We come to Firenze for the bistecca fiorentina and were disapointed both times. We elected to not nominate a winner this year.
Ischia 🇮🇹
- 🍳 Breakfast: Ischia Salumi care about giving you a good sandwich.
- 🍽️ Dinner: Restaurant Auras
Amalfi 🇮🇹
- 🍽️ Dinner: Taverna degli Apostoli
- 🥾 Hiking: Path of the Gods while getting there through public transport is more of a pain and its last 3km are less interesting the views and the trail are worth the pain
Rome 🇮🇹
- 🍳 Breakfast: Forno Campo de' Fiori
- 🍽️ Dinner: 53 Untitled welcoming bistro with small tables on the street, and a very contemporary approach to its cuisine.
- 🍨 Gelato: Giolitti do the miss the pink grapefruit gellato.
- ☕️ Coffee: Barnum