Nobody’s claimed this yet
Be the first local to put Italian in Madison on the map. Your Top 5 anchors the City Consensus for everyone who comes next.
Start a Top 5 for ItalianEditor’s picks
Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in Madison Magazine and Isthmus. Updated August 2026.
Lombardino's Restaurant · West Side
The 2025 Best of Madison readers' poll gold medalist for Italian cooking, from a kitchen whose chef, Andres Martinez, also took the individual Chef of the Year award in the same year's voting. It anchors University Avenue as one of Madison's longest-standing Italian dining rooms.
Bar Corallini · Schenk-Atwood
An Atwood Avenue Italian bar and dining room that took silver in the 2025 Best of Madison readers' poll's Italian category. A Cap Times staffer named its tiramisu among the best things they ate in Madison in 2025, a signal of the kitchen's strength beyond its main courses.
Osteria Novella · Near West
Amalfi Coast-inspired Italian cooking from chef Giovanni Novella, a former chef at Bar Corallini, in the space west of campus that had been Novanta, per Isthmus's year-end dining roundup naming the 2025 opening. The Cap Times year-end roundup separately supplied the University Avenue address for the restaurant.
Osteria Papavero · Downtown
Rustic Italian fare on a commuter-heavy stretch of East Wilson Street, from chef Francesco Mangano, a James Beard Best Chef Midwest semifinalist. Isthmus's review describes the restaurant as having quietly stood through changes on the block, comfortable as old leather, and the restaurant's own site shows active, current reservations.