{"id":6600,"date":"2026-09-07T22:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakecomoexplorer.com\/what-to-eat-lake-como-food-guide\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T22:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:04:10","slug":"what-to-eat-lake-como-food-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakecomoexplorer.com\/nl\/what-to-eat-lake-como-food-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Wat te eten aan het Comomeer: missoltini, polenta en vis uit het meer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wat te eten aan het Comomeer: missoltini, polenta en vis uit het meer<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Lake Como’s food is not the Italy most visitors expect. There is very little tomato and not much olive oil. This is Lombardy, at the foot of the Alps, and the kitchen here runs on butter, cornmeal, mountain cheese and whatever the lake gives up that morning. It is a cuisine of fishermen and cowherds that the grand hotels never quite polished away, and if you know what to order you will eat better, and cheaper, than the people at the next table with the tourist menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guide covers the dishes that belong to the lake and nowhere else, the wines and cheeses from the valleys behind it, where each dish is done best, and how to tell a real lakeside kitchen from a menu aimed at the ferry queue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Polenta
Polenta uncia at a mountain hut above Como: butter, garlic, sage and cheese. Photo: M\u00e6nsard vokser \/ Wikimedia Commons \u2013 CC BY-SA 4.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dishes of Lake Como<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Missoltini: the sun-dried shad<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If Lake Como has a single signature dish, this is it. Missoltini<\/strong> (in dialect missultin<\/em>) are agoni<\/em>, the lake’s small freshwater shad, caught in late spring and early summer, salted, dried in the sun on racks along the shore, then pressed for months in tins with bay leaves until they take on a deep, salty, almost cured-ham intensity. The tradition is old enough to have shaped the villages: the fish were once currency and tax on the lake. Today it is protected as a Slow Food Presidium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missoltini are served grilled, beaten lightly to loosen the skin, dressed with olive oil and a splash of vinegar, and always with a thick slice of grilled polenta. They are strong, salty and unmistakably of this place; some visitors love them at first bite, others need the second. Order them anyway. The best come from the central and upper lake, especially around the Tremezzina and Gravedona<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risotto con filetti di pesce persico<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The dish you will see on every menu from Como to Colico, and the one that best shows the lake’s butter-and-rice character. A plain, saffron-free risotto, cooked in fish stock and finished with butter, is topped with fillets of perch<\/strong> dusted in flour, fried in butter with sage until the edges crisp. It is a Como classic, gentle and rich. When it is done properly the perch is lake perch, not frozen Nile perch from elsewhere; a good kitchen will say so on the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lavarello and the other lake fish<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Lavarello<\/strong>, the lake whitefish, is the everyday fish of Como: delicate, white-fleshed, usually grilled whole or baked with herbs and lemon. Look also for trota<\/strong>, lake and river trout; alborelle<\/strong>, tiny bleak fried whole and eaten like crisps with a glass of white; tinca<\/strong>, tench, traditionally stuffed and baked; and luccio<\/strong>, pike, often served in a mild sauce. A fritto misto di lago<\/em> gives you several at once. On the eastern shore around Lierna<\/a> en Mandello del Lario<\/a> the fishing families still supply the trattorias directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polenta uncia: butter, garlic, sage and cheese<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Polenta is the bread of the lake, and polenta uncia<\/strong> (also spelt oncia<\/em>, “greased”) is its richest form: cornmeal cooked slowly, layered with local cheese, then drowned in butter that has been browned with garlic and sage. It comes from the alpine pastures above Como and the Valle d’Intelvi and is a mountain dish first, so you will find the best versions in the hill villages and the rifugi<\/em>, the mountain huts, rather than on the waterfront. Winter is its season, but any restaurant that has it in July is worth trusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its cousin polenta taragna<\/strong>, made with buckwheat flour and stirred with cheese, belongs to the Valtellina and the upper lake. Both go with brasato<\/strong>, beef braised in red wine, or with mountain sausage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pizzoccheri and the food of the Valtellina<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"A
Pizzoccheri della Valtellina: buckwheat noodles, cabbage, potato, Casera cheese and garlic butter. Photo: Aplasia \/ Wikimedia Commons \u2013 CC BY-SA 4.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Valtellina, the long alpine valley that opens onto the top of the lake at Colico<\/a>, feeds the whole northern half of Lake Como. Its great dish is pizzoccheri<\/strong>: short, flat buckwheat noodles boiled with potato and cabbage, then layered with Casera cheese and finished with garlic butter. Heavy, dark, magnificent, and made for a cold day. From the same valley come sciatt<\/strong>, fritters of buckwheat batter with a molten heart of cheese; bresaola<\/strong>, the air-dried beef that is the valley’s most famous export, served thinly sliced with lemon, oil and rocket; and the cheeses below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cheeses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n