Portale del Lago di Como

Visiting an area means discovering its history, culture and natural beauty, but also enjoying the aromas and flavours that its cuisine has to offer.
With the mountains, hills and plains that surround it, Lake Como offers tasty genuine products. As is typical of Italian culinary tradition, Lake Como offers food as varied as the local area: a real gastronomic treasure trove, from lake fish to cheese, cold cuts and meat-based dishes.
Missoltini (sun-dried shad) Larian-style tench, pike fillets, risotto with perch, maltagliati with lavaret roe and famous traditional Lombard dishes such as casseoula (pork and savoy cabbage) and buseca (tripe) all accompanied by the ubiquitous polenta uncia and tocc, and washed down with some good local red or white wine, are just some of the dishes that you will see on restaurant menus in the Lake Como area.
In the valleys and mountains you can sample peasant cooking, essentially based on yellow taragna vuncia polenta, which accompanies tasty game dishes or rustic cheese. Polenta, game, mushrooms and chestnuts are the main foods in this cuisine with its old traditional tastes. Full fat cheese is a typical product of mountain dairies. It is still made today in copper pans on wood burning stoves and the cheese is left to mature for at least three months in natural grottos or cellars. The Valsassina excels in cheese-making, thanks to its herds and the grottos that are used in natural maturation. The most famous product is taleggio but there are also stronger or more delicate goats’ cheeses, small fresh cheeses, ricotta, rustic salami and excellent butter.
Peasant-style cookery dominates the green and agricultural Brianza area. Typical produce includes so-called favoured hunting and gathering (for example of chestnuts, walnuts, snails and freshwater shrimp). There are hearty local dishes like verzata (pork and savoy cabbage), busecca or foiolo (tripe), polenta with small birds, cotechino with beans and, of course, all local delicatessen products like filzette and cacciatorini. There is also the original rustisciada, a typical dish from the Brianza area made with pork loin and sausage browned with onions.
The Brianza area is also full of vineyards. The finest wine comes from the Montevecchia hillside. There are also vineyards on the northern west end of the lake above Domaso.