Lake Como gets the celebrities. Lake Garda gets the tourists. Lake Maggiore gets the people who did a little more research, and they come back extremely pleased with themselves for it.
As travel experts specializing in Italy and France, we have been sending clients to Lake Maggiore for years, and the conversation we always end up having afterward is about the food. The scenery speaks for itself, but the gastronomy here is something most visitors have no idea about until they sit down and order, and it deserves far more attention than it gets.
Lake Maggiore sits on the border between Piemonte and Lombardia, and the cooking reflects both regions in the best possible way. Piemonte brings the rice, the butter, and the slow patience that a proper risotto requires. Lombardia brings the lake, and with it a freshwater fish tradition that is entirely its own. Together they produce something worth making a trip for.
The dish every local orders without looking at the menu is risotto al pesce persico, risotto with lake perch. It is simple, it is fresh, and it is one of the best things you will eat in all of northern Italy. Since we love it so much, here is how it is made at home in Lombardia:
Risotto al Pesce Persico
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the fish stock:
Perch bones and heads — from 4 whole fish
1 litre water
1/2 white onion
1 stick celery
5 black peppercorns
100 ml dry white wine
For the risotto:
320 g Carnaroli rice
1 white onion, finely chopped
80 g cold unsalted butter, divided
100 ml dry white wine
50 g Grana Padano, finely grated
Salt to taste
For the perch fillets:
600 g lake perch fillets (pesce persico)
40 g unsalted butter
6 fresh sage leaves
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and white pepper
Preparazione
Step 1: Make the stock
Combine the perch bones and heads with the water, onion, celery, peppercorns, and white wine in a saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 20 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve and keep warm on a low flame.
Step 2: Start the risotto
In a wide, heavy pan, melt 40 g of the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and sweat gently for about 8 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the Carnaroli rice and toast it for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the grains turn slightly opaque at the edges. Pour in the white wine and stir until fully absorbed.
Step 3: Cook the risotto
Begin adding the warm fish stock one ladle at a time, stirring continuously and waiting until each ladle is absorbed before adding the next. This process takes approximately 18 minutes. The finished risotto should be al dente and loose enough to spread slowly across the plate when spooned. The Lombardi call this consistency all’onda…like a wave.
Step 4: Cook the perch
While the risotto finishes, season the perch fillets with salt and white pepper and dust lightly in flour on both sides. Melt 40 g of butter in a separate pan over medium-high heat and add the sage leaves. When the butter begins to foam, place the fillets in the pan and cook for 2 minutes per side until the edges are golden and crisp. Remove the sage leaves and keep the browned butter warm in the pan.
Step 5: Finish and serve
Remove the risotto from the heat. Stir in the remaining cold butter and the grated Grana Padano. Let it rest for one minute. Spoon into warm bowls, lay two or three perch fillets on top of each portion, and pour the browned sage butter over everything. Serve immediately.
In Stresa, Ristorante Lo Stornello on Via Cavour does this dish beautifully, with a terrace that looks directly over the water. For a more refined evening, Le Bolle at Boutique Hotel Stresa is worth booking ahead.
The other fish worth ordering is lavarello, the local whitefish, which most restaurants grill or bake simply with herbs and olive oil. Eat it at lunch at a table as close to the water as possible, with a glass of Ghemme. Ghemme is made from the Nebbiolo grape on the hills of Piemonte just west of the lake, earthy and structured in the way that great Barolo is, and almost completely unknown outside the region. If you are a serious wine drinker, this is the trip to discover it.
On Isola dei Pescatori, the most authentic of the Borromean Islands, Ristorante Verbano sits right on the water with the illuminated facade of Palazzo Borromeo visible across the lake in the evenings. In Verbania, Ristorante Milano on Corso Zanitello takes the local produce seriously, and Caffè delle Rose in Pallanza, a Michelin Guide restaurant set inside a 1920s bistrot with original counters and ancient skylights, is worth a long, unhurried lunch. Near Arona on the southern shores, Strattoria carries both Michelin Guide and Slow Food recognition and has a wine list to match.
Away from the water, the cooking turns to the mountains of Piemonte. Polenta concia, polenta cooked slowly with Ossolano DOP cheese and butter until it is dense and deeply savory, is on almost every menu in autumn and winter alongside braised game. Luigi Guffanti Formaggi in Arona, a cheese ager in its fifth generation since 1876, is one of the finest in all of Italy and offers cellar visits by appointment for those who want to understand what a properly aged Ossolano really means.
Lake Maggiore still has a quietness to it that feels increasingly rare in Italy. You can walk into a trattoria in Verbania on a Tuesday afternoon, order the risotto al pesce persico and a glass of Ghemme, and feel completely unhurried in a way that the more famous lakes stopped offering a long time ago. The food is what keeps you there long enough to feel it, and once you do, you will understand why our clients keep asking to go back.
We would love to help you plan a trip here. Get in touch with us at The Italian Concierge and let us know when you are thinking of going! Buon Appetito!