When I visited: September 2015

Location: Lake Como (Varenna), within Hotel du Lac

Rating in the Michelin Guide: Not rated in the Guide

Dining Owl Hoot rating: 4/5

What to wear: Could go casual

Ambience: Amazing view of the lake, seats on terrace

Course of the meal: Ravioli

If I could change one thing: Limoncello to finish?!

Review:

Varenna is a beautiful town with a monastery villa that you can visit, and has several restaurants with amazing views of the lake. My partner Owl and I opted for a lunch at Hotel du Lac, which turned out to be a good decision.

We shared a half-bottle of Soave white wine, which was fresh and light, to accompany our ravioli. The ravioli changes daily; the one we had was stuffed with ricotta, and served with fennel, pistachios and olive oil, and was simply delicious – probably the best pasta I had in our whole Italian holiday, and that is saying something. We also shared a coppa meringa for dessert – an indulgent creamy dish of mini meringues with cream, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. With our bill we were given little biscuits – a golden one and an almond crunchy one. They also do an array of homemade cakes.

If you are exploring the town of Varenna on a holiday to Lake Como, I would highly recommend stopping off at this restaurant.