Trattoria Baita Belvedere, Brunate
Ride the century-old funicular from Como city up to the hillside village of Brunate, then walk ten minutes to Trattoria Baita Belvedere for honest Lariano mountain cooking with a terrace that looks straight down over the rooftops of Como and out across the lake. The food is unfussy, seasonal and deeply satisfying.
What to Order
The kitchen runs on Lombard tradition: start with nervetti (pressed veal knuckle salad with onions and capers — an acquired taste that rewards the brave) or a simple plate of local salumi with pickled vegetables. The polenta, made with stone-ground Bramata cornmeal, arrives in a thick golden slab alongside brasato al vino rosso (beef braised in red wine for hours until it collapses at the touch of a fork).
In autumn the menu pivots to porcini mushrooms from the surrounding forests — risotto ai funghi porcini, tagliatelle ai funghi, grilled porcini caps with garlic and parsley. If you visit between September and October, order whatever contains mushrooms.
Finish with a slice of sbrisolona — the crumbly almond shortbread cake from Mantua that has spread across all of Lombardy — paired with a small glass of grappa from the Valtellina.
Brunate Village Beyond the Meal
Brunate itself is a Liberty-style (Italian Art Nouveau) gem — the village boomed as a resort for Milanese industrialists in the early 1900s and the hillside is dotted with ornate villas in various states of faded glory.
From Brunate a signed trail leads in 1.5 hours to the lighthouse-tower of Faro Voltiano on the summit of San Maurizio (1,000 m), where on clear days you can see Monte Rosa and the entire western Alps. The trattoria makes an excellent pre-hike or post-hike lunch stop.
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