The nicest dishes in Verona, Italy

Let's start with pasta. It's always pasta when talking about Italian food. However, in order not to be too boring, we'll start with unusually cute and original-looking pasta. Tortellini are shaped like small shells filled with a mix of pork loin, raw prosciutto, mortadella, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, egg and nutmeg. The stuffed shells are served in capon broth. The recipe is quite classic, dating back to the 16th century, and its versatility and tidiness make tortellini perfect for packaging and store sales as well as restaurant preparation.

Trattoria Dal Gal has great tortellini.

From cute to distinguishes - not an uncommon path for Italian cuisine. Another variation of pasta on today's list is the world-famous ravioli. Though less renowned than spaghetti, ravioli is a dish to be consumed by both a connoisseur of the finest work by the finest chef in Verona and a regular visitor trying to have a good meal. There are many options for filling the dough with ricotta cheese, spinach, nutmeg, black pepper, and a variety of other ingredients to make the dish special.

Along with different pasta, ravioli is great at Darì.

Let's get the classics over with before continuing with something less universally known and beloved. Spaghetti carbonara is a classic dish made with eggs, hard cheese, cured pork, and black pepper. A mixture of raw eggs grated Pecorino Romano and a liberal amount of ground black pepper is combined with the hot pasta in the pasta pot make up the basis of good spaghetti carbonara. Some preparations have more sauce and therefore use tubular-shaped pasta, such as penne.

Little Italy Pizza&Food offers great spaghetti carbonara.

Now we're getting serious. All of Italy loves prosciutto, but the reasons for that are to be discovered by each food enthusiast on their own. This cooked ham has as many variations as there are parts of Italy making it differently, the most common name for the dry-cured ham as a whole is "prosciutto crudo". Depending on who makes it and how, prosciutto can be the easiest way to grab a bite or the most exquisite part of a complex meal. It's up to you to find out which one you get.

Trattoria al Pompiere is a good choice here.

If prosciutto is too basic and crude for your taste, there's always a more exquisite alternative that Italians came up with during the era of modernization and change that took place the 1950s. Everyone already knows that carpaccio is the properly sliced and diced beef, veal, venison, salmon or tuna combined and presented raw as an appetizer for a more hefty meal. This makes this kind of food perfect for a traveller or someone too impatient to try other offerings on our list.

Trattoria Dal Taio has great carpaccio.

As you can see, pasta, sauces, and properly prepared meat are the bread and butter of Italian cuisine, but we should not forget about the actual bread. Here, Italians are as inventive as they are in everything else. The "white pizza", or focaccia, is very popular as a traditional type of food and is even made similar in style and texture to pizza. It's very satiating and combines greatly with meat, for example, carpaccio or prosciutto. It also makes for great sandwiches if you like a quick bite.

La Figaccia is a great restaurant where white pizza is some of the best you can find in Verona.

We're taking a little detour and returning to pasta. Lasagna is actually one of the oldest, if not the oldest, types of pasta around, having originated in Italy during the Middle Ages. The classic recipe comprises stacked layers of wide flat sheets alternating with fillings such as ragù, vegetables, cheeses as well as seasonings and spices. Many local variations exist, and with a bit of imagination, a good chef can turn lasagna into something really special, even for a particularly picky eater.

An interesting place for that would be Parma a Tavola.

This one is also quite popular, yet very few restaurants actually make and serve it properly. The most important thing about risotto is its creamy consistency which is rather difficult to get right, hence the need for an exemplary good home cook or a talented chef. Only if you can make the rice mixture creamy enough while adding things like butter, onion, white wine, and parmesan cheese, you can really say that you got proper risotto. That's why it's late on the list despite usually being the main course.

At Il Cenacolo, they do a good job.

We started the list with cute little tortellini, so it's a poetic move, in a way, to finalize it with similarly small but impactful food. Gnocchi are basically small dumplings made of small lumps of dough composed of semolina, ordinary wheat flour, egg, cheese, potato, breadcrumbs, cornmeal or similar ingredients, and possibly including herbs, vegetables, and other ingredients. Gnocchi are usually eaten as a first course, but they can also be served as a side dish.

Trattoria alla Fedelta has great gnocci.

Let's end the list with something smooth but a little gritty. There's a special kind of Italian milk cheese called burrata and made from mozzarella and cream. Naturally, the taste and the feeling of this kind of cheese is something special if it requires components like that. Established as artisanal cheese, burrata maintained its premium-product status even after it began to be made commercially. When the burrata is sliced open, the thickened stracciatella flows out, so accuracy and timing are important.

Pizzeria Leon d'Oro offers awesome burrata.

Verona is a proud and beautiful city with a long and interesting history, as well as an ever-changing modern life. Have fun becoming part of it, even if only for a bit.