Verona's signature dishes are a short list that the city itself has written down: the Comune di Verona protects gnocchi di Verona, pastissada de caval and pearà with De.Co. (municipal origin) specifications, and risotto all'Amarone is a candidate for the same mark. Around them sit bigoli with duck ragu, boiled mixed meats with pearà, tortellini from Valeggio, and the Christmas cakes nadalin and pandoro. Where a restaurant is named, its own menu lists the dish.
The ingredients come from a short radius. Riso Nano Vialone Veronese has held IGP status since 1996 and is grown in 24 municipalities of the province, including Isola della Scala. Amarone is a strong dry red made from grapes dried for several months in the Valpolicella, northwest of the city. Monte Veronese is a PDO cheese made in the north of the province, on and around the Lessinia plateau, and Lake Garda, about 25 km northwest at Bardolino, supplies lavarello, perch and pike.
Signature dishes
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Risotto all'Amarone ★ 4.9
Risotto cooked with Amarone della Valpolicella and Vialone Nano rice; Al Bersagliere, Arco dei Gavi and Osteria Caffe Monte Baldo ask for two people minimum.
Where to try it: Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23, Trattoria Al Bersagliere, Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Antica Bottega del Vino, Osteria Caffe Monte Baldo
Price: €15-22 per portion: Al Bersagliere €15, Sottoriva 23 €16, Antica Bottega del Vino €22
Doctorwine reports risotto all'Amarone as a candidate for the Comune di Verona's De.Co. mark, promoted by the city's typical restaurateurs with the Valpolicella and Vialone Nano rice consortia. Its official recipe uses Vialone Nano IGP rice, Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, butter, a young half-aged mountain cow's cheese and vegetable broth. The rice has held IGP status since 1996 and is grown in 24 municipalities of Verona province, among them Isola della Scala.
Watch out for: Dairy, Sulphites (wine)
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Pastissada de caval ★ 4.7
Verona's horse-meat stew, macerated at least 24 hours in red wine with onion, carrot and spices, served with polenta or as the dressing for gnocchi and pasta.
Where to try it: Osteria al Duca, Trattoria Al Bersagliere, Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23, Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Osteria da Ugo
Price: €17 to €17.5 per portion at Al Bersagliere and Sottoriva 23; Osteria al Duca includes it in a €26 menu with a first course
The Comune di Verona's De.Co. specification describes pastissada de caval as a long-cooked dish of horse meat, wine, vegetables and aromatics, originally the dressing for gnocchi made by housewives of the San Zeno district and typical of winter. Local legend ties it to the 489 Battle of Verona between Theodoric and Odoacer; a 2020 Studi Veronesi article by Andrea Brugnoli questions that origin. Osteria al Duca says its 13th-century house served pastissada with polenta to travellers.
Watch out for: Sulphites (wine)
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Bigoli con l'arna ★ 4.7
Fresh bigoli, a thick pasta, with duck ragu: arna or anara is duck in dialect. Osteria al Duca lists a donkey-ragu version, and Sottoriva 23 serves a duck one.
Where to try it: Trattoria Al Bersagliere, Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23, Osteria da Ugo, Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Osteria al Duca
Price: €13-19 per portion: Al Bersagliere €13, Sottoriva 23 €16.5, Da Ugo €19
Italian Wikipedia describes bigoli as a pasta of soft wheat flour, water and salt, traditionally pressed through a hand-operated press, and places their origin in the province of Padua, with a spread across the Veneto, Trentino and eastern Lombardy. The duck ragu is called bigoi co l'anara or co l'arna. In Verona, Al Bersagliere, Osteria da Ugo, Arco dei Gavi and Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 list a duck version, and Osteria al Duca lists bigoli al torchio with donkey ragu.
Watch out for: Gluten, Eggs
Book food experiences in Verona
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Pearà ★ 4.6
Pearà is Verona's pepper sauce of bread, beef marrow and meat broth, cooked for at least two hours and served very hot with boiled mixed meats.
Where to try it: Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23
Price: €22 for the Gran bollito veronese with pearà at Sottoriva 23
The Comune di Verona's De.Co. specification defines pearà as a cooked sauce that accompanies bollito misto, a traditional dish of much of the Veronese foothills. It calls for beef broth (at least half) and hen broth, grated hard bread, beef marrow, butter and black pepper, with olive oil at the end, and cooks for at least two hours with repeated stirring. It is served hot, usually in terracotta pans. Italian Wikipedia records a legend crediting the cook of the Lombard king Alboin, who made Verona his capital in 568.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
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Bollito misto ★ 4.5
Boiled mixed meats, the dish the pearà sauce goes with; Greppia is known for its cart of boiled meats and Sottoriva 23 serves a Veronese version with pearà.
Where to try it: Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23, Ristorante Greppia
Price: €22 at Sottoriva 23
The Comune di Verona's pearà specification calls bollito misto a traditional dish of much of the Veronese foothills, served with that sauce. Ristorante Greppia, open in central Verona since 1975, says its cart of boiled meats is particularly famous. Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 lists a Gran bollito veronese served with pearà, salsa verde and horseradish (cren) at €22, and Trattoria Arco dei Gavi lists roast and boiled meats served with pearà.
Watch out for: Gluten (in the pearà)
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Pandoro ★ 4.8
Pandoro is the tall eight-pointed Christmas cake of Verona. Melegatti's own site dates Domenico Melegatti's industrial privilege to 14 October 1894.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Flego
Melegatti's own site says Domenico Melegatti received a certificate of industrial privilege on 14 October 1894 from the Kingdom of Italy's Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, covering the pandoro's name, shape and recipe; English Wikipedia gives 30 October, so the company's date is used here. Pandoro traditionally has an eight-pointed shape. Pasticceria Flego calls the older nadalin the origin of pandoro and sells pandoro in its Christmas hampers; Melegatti's factory is at Via Monte Carega 23 in San Giovanni Lupatoto.
Watch out for: Gluten, Eggs, Dairy
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Gnocchi veronesi ★ 4.4
Verona's potato gnocchi, a classic of local family and festive cooking; the Comune's De.Co. specification calls for floury local potatoes, 00 flour, eggs and salt.
Where to try it: Osteria da Ugo, Osteria al Duca, Trattoria Arco dei Gavi
Price: €18 at Osteria da Ugo (potato gnocchi with pumpkin and an Amarone reduction)
The Comune di Verona's De.Co. specification calls gnocchi di Verona a classic preparation of Veronese gastronomy, part of family habits and of festive and religious traditions, made to be eaten at once. Tradition dates the Venerdi Gnocolar in Piazza San Zeno to the famine of 1531; sources credit the doctor Tommaso da Vico or a group of wealthy citizens with feeding the poor. In 2026 the Comune listed gnocchi stands in Piazza San Zeno from 10:00 on Carnival Friday.
Watch out for: Gluten, Eggs
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Tortellini di Valeggio ★ 4.4
Small meat-filled tortellini from Valeggio sul Mincio, about 25 km southwest of Verona, served in broth or with butter and sage; the knot is its symbol.
Where to try it: Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23, Trattoria Arco dei Gavi
Price: €16 at Sottoriva 23
Wikipedia says tortellini were created in Valeggio sul Mincio, about 25 km southwest of Verona, whose hamlet Borghetto has the fortified Visconti bridge built in 1393. The Festa del Nodo d'Amore, a long-table tortellini dinner on that bridge, started in 1993 and is held on the third Tuesday of June. In Verona, Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 lists small meat-filled Tortellini alla Moda di Valeggio with butter and sage at €16, and Trattoria Arco dei Gavi lists them in broth or with butter and sage.
Watch out for: Gluten, Eggs, Dairy
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Bigoli in salsa ★ 4.3
Bigoli dressed with a salted-fish and onion sauce; Osteria al Duca lists a related bigoli all'acciuga with raisins and pine nuts in its fixed-price menu.
Where to try it: Osteria al Duca
Price: Part of Osteria al Duca's €26 menu (first and second course)
Italian Wikipedia describes bigoli in salsa as bigoli cooked with onion and salted sardines, and places bigoli themselves in the province of Padua and across the Veneto. Osteria al Duca lists bigoli all'acciuga con uvetta e pinoli among its first courses in a €26 menu with a second course. The same article notes that the roughness left by pressing helps bigoli hold their sauce.
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish
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Luccio in salsa (luccio e polenta) ★ 4.3
Pike cooked slowly with capers, sardines and vinegar and served with polenta; a dish of the upper Mantua area and the lower Lake Garda shore. Arco dei Gavi lists it.
Where to try it: Trattoria Arco dei Gavi
ScattiDiGusto's guide to eating on Lake Garda describes luccio in salsa as a dish of the upper Mantua area and the lower lake, served with grilled polenta after slow cooking with capers, sardines and vinegar. Trattoria Arco dei Gavi lists luccio in salsa mantovana con polenta on its menu. The pike is one of the lake fish named in guides to Garda restaurants, with coregone (lavarello), perch and trout.
Watch out for: Fish
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Torta Russa ★ 4.3
Torta russa is a Verona almond cake; its name is said to come either from a pastry chef's cruise-ship romance or from its fur-hat shape. Flego bakes it.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Flego, Trattoria Al Bersagliere
Price: €35-50 for a whole cake and €12 for a baby cake at Flego; €7 as a dessert at Al Bersagliere
Pasticceria Flego writes that legend has a Veronese pastry chef, working on a cruise ship on Russian seas, fall in love and invent the cake to win a girl, while the less romantic say the name comes from its shape, which recalls a colbacco (fur hat). Flego says it does not know which is true and makes what it calls the original recipe, which it has produced for over sixty years. In Flego's online shop a whole torta russa costs €35 to €50 and a baby one €12; Trattoria Al Bersagliere lists torta russa at €7.
Watch out for: Gluten, Almond (tree nut), Eggs, Dairy
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Nadalin ★ 4.2
Nadalin is Verona's older Christmas cake; Flego dates its recipe to 1260, when the Della Scala asked a court pastry chef for a cake, and calls it pandoro's ancestor.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Flego
Pasticceria Flego writes that the nadalin recipe goes back to 1260, when the Della Scala, lords of Verona, asked a court pastry chef for a cake that represented their city, and that the pandoro grew out of this leavened cake at the end of the 1800s. Italian Wikipedia gives the same 13th-century origin, says it has no precise shape (often star-shaped, sometimes dome-shaped), lists flour, butter, eggs, sugar, pine nuts and almonds, and notes it received the Comune's De.C.O. certification in 2012.
Watch out for: Gluten, Eggs, Dairy, Almond and pine nuts
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Baci di Giulietta ★ 4.5
Baci di Giulietta e Romeo are soft Verona biscuits of two almond-and-hazelnut shells that 'kiss' into little hearts, with an almond and cocoa aroma, as Flego describes them.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Flego
Price: €12 per box at Flego's online shop
Pasticceria Flego presents its Baci di Giulietta e Romeo as the authentic pastry of Verona, a soft biscuit of two almond and hazelnut shells that kiss, in homage to the best-known couple in history. Gambero Rosso says the name comes from Shakespeare's play and that the biscuit is of relatively recent origin. Flego sells them at €12 in its online shop, next to its Amaretti di Verona, made with lemon zest and shaped like the arches of the Arena.
Watch out for: Gluten, Almond and hazelnut (tree nuts), Eggs, Dairy
The classic plates
Risotto all'Amarone is cooked with Vialone Nano rice and Amarone della Valpolicella; Trattoria Al Bersagliere (€15), Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 (€16), Trattoria Arco dei Gavi, Antica Bottega del Vino (€22) and Osteria Caffe Monte Baldo list it. Pastissada de caval is horse meat macerated at least 24 hours in red wine and cooked for hours, served with polenta or over gnocchi or pasta; Osteria al Duca, Al Bersagliere (€17) and Sottoriva 23 (€17.5) serve it. Boiled mixed meats come with pearà at Arco dei Gavi and Sottoriva 23, and Ristorante Greppia is known for its cart of boiled meats.
Bigoli and the sauces
Italian Wikipedia describes bigoli as a pasta of soft wheat flour, water and salt, traditionally pressed through a hand-operated press, with origins in the province of Padua and a spread across the Veneto. The duck sauce is called bigoi co l'anara or co l'arna in Venetian: Al Bersagliere lists it at €13, Sottoriva 23 at €16.5 and Osteria da Ugo at €19. Osteria al Duca lists bigoli al torchio with donkey ragu and bigoli all'acciuga with raisins and pine nuts.
Pandoro, nadalin and the 1894 privilege
Melegatti's own site says Domenico Melegatti received an industrial privilege certificate for pandoro on 14 October 1894, covering its name, shape and recipe; English Wikipedia gives 30 October. Pasticceria Flego dates the older nadalin to 1260 and the Della Scala court, and calls it the origin of pandoro. Flego also sells torta russa (a whole cake €35 to €50) and Baci di Giulietta e Romeo (€12), two Verona sweets it describes on its own site.
Lake fish and mountain cheese
Guides to eating on Lake Garda name lavarello (coregone), perch, pike and trout as the typical fish, with the small agone traditionally dried or grilled. Luccio in salsa, pike cooked slowly with capers, sardines and vinegar and served with polenta, is a dish of the upper Mantua area and the lower lake; Trattoria Arco dei Gavi lists it. The Lessinia plateau produces Monte Veronese cheese and the Marrone di San Mauro chestnut, and its visitor site calls gnocchi di malga, made from water, flour and salt, the traditional dish.
Frequently asked: signature dishes in Verona
Which dish should I order to eat like a Veronese?
Risotto all'Amarone, pastissada de caval and boiled meats with pearà. Al Bersagliere lists the first two on one short menu, and Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 lists all three.
Is pastissada de caval really horse meat?
Yes. The Comune di Verona's specification names horse cheek, muscle or shoulder, cooked for hours with onion, carrot, red wine and spices after at least 24 hours of maceration. Osteria al Duca's menu also lists raw horse meat and grilled horse steak.
Where can I buy pandoro and nadalin in Verona?
Pasticceria Flego has shops on Via Stella and Corso Porta Borsari, and its Christmas hampers hold panettone, pandoro and nadalin. Melegatti's factory is at Via Monte Carega 23 in San Giovanni Lupatoto.
What wine goes into risotto all'Amarone?
Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG, according to the official recipe published by Doctorwine. Ostregheteria Sottoriva 23 offers a glass of what it calls the cook's Amarone with its risotto, priced at €6.5.
How long do pearà and pastissada take to make?
The Comune di Verona's specifications set a minimum: at least two hours of cooking for pearà, and at least 24 hours of maceration for pastissada de caval before the long braise.