Food on Lake Como is more than pizza and pasta with a view. The cooking of the lake draws on freshwater fish, rice and polenta, mountain cheeses and the wines of the nearby Alpine valleys, and the best meals are often the simple ones. This guide explains what to look for and how to eat well without paying lakefront prices for an ordinary plate.
Lake fish
The lake’s classic dish is perch fillets, often lightly fried in butter and sage and served with risotto, a combination you will see on almost every menu in the villages. Whitefish, called lavarello, appears grilled or baked, and shad that has been dried, called missoltini, is a salty speciality of the Como lake shore that is usually served grilled with polenta. Fish dishes are the most characteristic thing to order, but ask whether the fish is from the lake, because some menus use imports, and a good restaurant will tell you.
Polenta, rice and the mountains
Behind the lake lie valleys that supply cheeses, cured meats and buckwheat dishes. Polenta, often served with braised meat, mushrooms or melted cheese, is the staple of cold months, and risotto is the lake’s rice answer to pasta. In autumn, menus lean on chestnuts, venison and wild mushrooms, particularly on the west shore around Menaggio. Pizzoccheri, a buckwheat pasta cooked with cabbage, potatoes and cheese, comes from the Valtellina valley to the north and is worth trying on a cold day.
Sweet things
Como has its own cake, the miascia, a rustic bake of bread, fruit and cornmeal that is dense and not very sweet, and you will find regional biscuits and pastries in bakeries in the old town. Gelato is part of the lakefront ritual, and a cone on the promenade is a pleasure at any time of year. For coffee, stand at the bar as locals do, because a coffee at the counter costs much less than the same drink at a table with a view.
Aperitivo
The Italian habit of a drink and snacks before dinner is strong here. From around six in the evening, bars set out small plates with a spritz or a glass of wine, and in some places the snacks are generous enough to make a light meal. It is a good way to enjoy a lakeside terrace for the price of a drink, and a sensible way to save money on a busy night.
Wine
The lake has its own vineyards, and wines labelled Terre Lariane come from the hills around it. The great red wines of the region come from the Valtellina valley north of the lake, where nebbiolo grapes grow on steep terraces, and a glass of Valtellina red goes well with polenta and cheese. Lombardy’s sparkling Franciacorta is a common choice for an aperitivo. If you want to learn more, wine tastings with a view are offered in Bellagio and Brunate.
Learning to cook
A class is one of the best ways to spend a wet afternoon. In Como, the small-group pasta and tiramisu class with an aperitivo teaches you to make pasta by hand and then lets you eat it. A food tour of Bellagio that includes the Villa Melzi gardens is a good way to combine tastings with a walk, and a guided food tour of Como introduces the old town’s bakeries and delicatessens.
How to avoid tourist traps
Restaurants with photo menus on the lakefront and staff who call out to passers-by are usually the weakest value. Walk one or two streets back from the water, look for short menus in Italian, check that the fish is local and read the cover charge and service charge on the menu before you order. Lunch is usually cheaper than dinner, and many places offer a fixed-price menu at midday. Winter hours are shorter and many places close on one weekday, so check before you plan a special dinner, and book ahead on weekends and in December.
A simple plan
Start the day with a coffee at the bar and a pastry, have lunch of lake fish or polenta a street back from the water, take an aperitivo on a terrace at six and finish with a light dinner or a second aperitivo plate. Add a cooking class on a wet day, and you will eat as the lake’s residents do.
