Catherine & Marcus
Things To Do
Il Vicoletto
Plates range from $10- $20. This is a very popular restaurant tucked away in Stresa’s narrow streets and comes highly recommended. As it is a small establishment, it’s worth booking in advance as it gets filled very quickly. It offers more contemporary Italian cuisine of a very high standard.
Bistrot 76 - Stresa
Plates range from $10- $30 This fine-dining restaurant is where all the Italian locals go. Its owners, the Bellossi family, are serious about food and wine, especially Piedmontese ingredients and wine (hence the restaurant’s name). Dishes such as porcini risotto, fresh pasta with meat sauce, and duck confit star on the menu, with fish and game options changing according to the season.
Ristorante Trattoria " Lo Stornello"
Plates range from $10- $22 The street profile isn’t a knockout and the interior isn’t particularly exciting either, but a quick opinion poll of local tastes will reveal that Stornella is the dark horse of Stresa restaurants.Among the dishes proposed: salad of crustaceans and mollusks scented with green pepper with pink grapefruit and crunchy vegetables; Spaghetti with cheese and pepper and artichokes with crispy bacon; potato gnocchi with pumpkin cream, crumbled sausage and Taleggio cheese cream.
Ristorante Milano
Plates range from $28- $42 and tasting menu (7 courses) $95 This is an intimate and classy restaurant that comes highly recommended! It is right in the heart of the town on the lake. The setting really is hard to beat: Milano directly overlooks Pallanza's minuscule horseshoe-shaped harbor, with a scattering of tables sitting on lakeside lawns amid the trees. It's an idyllic if pricey spot to enjoy lake fish, local lamb and some innovative Italian cuisine, such as pigeon with pâté and red-currant reduction.
Albergo Ristorante Verbano
Only tasting menus (4 courses) $80- $90 Arrive by private boat or ferry and enjoy the restaurant of Verbano hotel which has a stunning terrace overlooking Lago Maggiore and Isola Bella set up in the Isola dei Pescatori. Restaurant offers fresh lake fish as well as other Mediterranean delights accompanied by a great selection of wines. Try their fish antipasto and lake fish specialties.
Sky Bar at Hotel La Palma
Hotel La Palma hosts one of Stresa’s finest rooftop bars these days. Sky Bar, as the name suggests it, perches atop the building roof, inviting guests for a soft sunset drink.