We are staying in Bellagio for a couple of nights this summer and would like some recommendations for places to eat while visiting there. Also any suggestions for things to see would be of great help - thank you.

it's a tough call to leave town for dinner with the choices you have in Bellagio... but if you were planning to wander one of those nights anyway, the house restaurant at Albergo Milano in Varenna was a fine meal on a beautiful terrace overlooking the lake. Reservations are a must, as they are with all the good establishments, but my mind still wanders back to the 2-hour meals we enjoyed along the lake. Buon appetito!

I hear George Clooney puts out a great buffet

Vecchia Menaggio- take the ferry accross to Menaggio. We found this little tratoria quite by accident. All the water front restaurants were full and we just wandered back streets. All locals and still the best ravioli I have ever had.

Bilacus in Bellagio is justly famous. For some of my favorites, which tend to be off the beaten Bellagio-Varenna track, see http://www.beginningwithi.com/food/rest.html

best regards,
Deirdré Straughan

beginningwithi.com (personal)
www.tvblob.com (work)

I agree that Bilacus is virtually guaranteed to give you a good meal, but I enjoyed my meal in the lakeside garden terrace at the Hotel Florence even more. It's a beautiful setting and the food was better than Bilacus (IMO). However, I have heard that nonguests of the hotel have occasionally had problems.

Re Bilacus, unless it's raining, reserve an outside table if possible. Much prettier and more romantic.

We have not eaten here, but there is supposed a special restaurant on the island (appx across from Bellagio). The meal is rumored however to take a few hours.

My favorite dinner in Bellagio was in a restaurant whose name I can't remember. Woe!

However, there was once much discussion on this board about getting there safely, as it is just outside Bellagio and one must walk down a dangerous road without pedestrian space, and through a narrow tunnel to get there. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I think the place had a man's first name...

We didnt take the dangerous route to get there; the Hotel Belvedere showed us a back route through some fields and past a cemetary. It was fun finding the place this way.

I hope someone remembers the name of this place.

We had a good meal at Bilacus, but the place I am writing about was better and less expensive.

Do you mean Silvio? There was this post about it some time ago:

"The only problem is, it's [Silvio] a fair walk out of town, and a rather dangerous one as you have to go through a very narrow "underpass" sort of tunnel that cars fly through. I'm not sure how you'd survive if you happened to be going through there at the exact time a car came around the blind corner and plowed through it. We took a taxi to Silvio, and then couldn't get a taxi back for about an hour."

The same poster said, in a separate thread, that he had an excellent meal there.

We stayed at the metropole in Belligio .Walk out the front door across the narrow street and up the steps. The eatery is above the steps and is outside under a grapevine .Sitting under the grapevine eating great food and watching the lake traffic was a big wow.If you are interested I will go through my records to find the name.I must say I really didn,t find a disapointing meal. I loved the natural beauty of Como,it was my favorite. Have a wonderful trip!P.S its about halfway up that very steep hill.