The Dolomites

Three Michelin stars plus the Green Star — the highest-rated restaurant in the entire Dolomites region, and the heir to the old St. Hubertus at Rosa Alpina.

Niederkofler closed St. Hubertus when Rosa Alpina became Aman, then re-opened his fine-dining flagship at Atelier Moessmer in Brunico (Bruneck) in 2023. Six tables. One menu. Every ingredient sourced within South Tyrol — no citrus, no olive oil from outside, no cheating. The cooking is the most precise mountain cuisine on earth: trout aged like beef, mountain herbs that get harvested at altitude that morning, fermentation programs that take years. The wine list runs to Alto Adige and Trentino only. Lunch and dinner Tue–Sat. Book three months out. The single most expensive meal you'll have in the Dolomites and the one you'll talk about for a decade.

Inside Hotel La Perla in Corvara — one Michelin star, run by Chef Simone Cantafio, with the most atmospheric dining room in the valley.

A 17th-century stube — original Tyrolean farmhouse panelling, candlelight, eight tables. Cantafio came to La Perla after running the Bras family's two-star Toya restaurant in Hokkaido, and that Japanese influence shows: precision, restraint, the same respect for a single ingredient as a whole course. Two tasting menus, both worth doing. The mahatma wine cellar below has 30,000 bottles and a room dedicated entirely to Sassicaia — head sommelier Paolo Baraldi will pour you a vertical if you let him. Dinner only. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Hotel guests get priority.

Niederkofler's casual project at 2,275 metres, on top of Plan de Corones inside the Lumen mountain photography museum. The view is the dish.

Reach it by cable car from Bruneck, Riscone, or San Vigilio — last car back is 5 p.m., do not miss it. The dining room is an all-glass box hanging off the summit, with the Dolomites filling every window. The food is "Cook the Mountain" in its democratic form: a la carte at lunch, four-course tasting at dinner (book ahead — five tables only). The spaghettone with mountain-herb powder is the dish; the venison and the fermentation-driven sauces are the rest. Open daily 9:30–4:15 in season. Closed shoulder periods.

The Ladin farmhouse outside Pedraces with the seven-course fixed menu — no choice, no substitutions, just the food of these valleys done the way grandmothers did it.

A wood-shingled farmhouse run by the Frenademez family for generations. There's no menu — you sit down and the courses come: barley soup with speck, tutres (deep-fried sauerkraut-and-poppy pastries), schlutzkrapfen, smoked pork with cabbage, semifreddo, and furtaies for dessert. The price is €45 for the whole sequence. House wine in a carafe. Closed Mondays. Book a week ahead in season — there are only six tables and the entire valley knows about it. The single best-value meal you'll eat on the trip.

One Michelin star inside the Gardena Grödnerhof in Ortisei. Chef Reimund Brunner, a wine cellar with 650 labels, and a 30-seat dining room that gets booked out months ahead in ski season.

The Bernardi family's hotel has been here since 1923; Anna Stuben is the gourmet restaurant they built around it. Brunner cooks creatively from local ingredients with a noticeably lighter hand than the Tyrolean default — less butter, less sugar, more vegetable. Pumpkin with seasoned buffalo cheese, beetroot gnocchi with cave-aged cheese, Villnöss lamb with thyme gremolata. Sommelier Egon Perathoner runs the pairings; ask for an Alto Adige white you wouldn't think to order. Mon–Sat 7–9 p.m. Closed Sunday. Reservations: +39 0471 796315.

Paolo Donei's one-Michelin-star — held without interruption for over thirty years. Inside a 19th-century malga (alpine dairy) at 1,400 metres above Moena, with one of the best dining-room views in Val di Fassa.

The Donei family's century-old farmstead has been a restaurant since the 1950s; Paolo took over in his early twenties and earned his first star at nineteen. The original wood-and-stone walls remain, with a new glass-walled dining room cantilevered out toward the valley. Donei's cooking is the Trentino tradition rewritten — wild herbs from the surrounding pastures, smoked and brined meats made in-house, mushrooms, game, mountain cheeses, all on plates that look more like Tokyo than Tyrol. He recently launched a €20 six-course summer menu — a deliberate provocation against fine-dining inflation. Closed Mondays and Tuesday lunch. From Selva or Corvara, the drive is 45 minutes; from Cortina, 1h45.

Europe's highest microbrewery — five Reinheitsgebot beers brewed in-house at 2,050 metres, by Hungarian brewer Gábor Sógorka, inside the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park.

A two-hour hike from Pederü Berggasthaus in San Vigilio di Marebbe. The reward is one of the more singular drinks-and-dinner experiences in the Alps: five proper Bavarian-style beers brewed on-site, a kitchen that runs serious Ladin food (canederli, schlutzkrapfen, smoked meats from the valley below), and a dining room that looks at the white walls of the Lavarella massif. Eight rooms upstairs if you stay over — book months ahead in summer. Open mid-June to early October. Cash and card both work but bring cash to be safe.

The Rossi family's Michelin-listed rifugio in an Alpine basin above Passo San Pellegrino — gourmet mountain cuisine, a 600-label wine cellar, and a 40-minute walk through larch wood to reach it.

Sergio and Emanuela Rossi rebuilt this from an old hay barn in 1983; their son Martino now runs the kitchen. Cajoncìe (the Ladin name for schlutzkrapfen), polenta gnocchetti with smoked ricotta, veal stew, wild herb risottos, plus a wine list that's the most serious in any rifugio in the range. In summer, walk in from Passo San Pellegrino (40 min, flat, suitable for everyone); in winter, the kitchen runs a free shuttle / snowcat or you snowshoe. Open lunch and dinner with guest rooms upstairs (book months ahead for the dinner-with-stay package — it's the move). 1h from Bolzano, 50 min from Corvara.

The grill rifugio. A 30-minute walk from Lagazuoi cable car, with a kitchen that has been smoking and grilling meats over wood the same way since the 1950s.

Owned by the Alfarè family for four generations, sitting at 1,985 metres under the Lagazuoi peaks. The mixed grill — pork ribs, sausage, polenta, sometimes lamb — is the order, brought to the table on a wood board, no menu, no fuss. Pair it with a Lagrein from the carafe. They also do canederli and a strong barley soup if you'd rather. In winter it's a famous toboggan stop on the Armentarola ski run, in summer a hiking lunch stop. Open roughly Christmas through Easter, then late June through early October. Closed Tuesdays in summer. Cash preferred.

The fanciest rifugio in the eastern Dolomites — at 2,413 metres, with a Tofane view, a wine list that goes properly deep, and food a step above the standard hut menu.

Above Cinque Torri, the five towers near Cortina — reachable by chairlift from Bai de Dones in summer, or a 30-minute hike up from Rifugio Scoiattoli. Run by the Sebenicher family, who source most of the meat from their valley and let the wine list (350+ labels, very Italian) do the rest of the talking. Tagliolini al ragù di cervo is the dish; the strudel for dessert is also legitimate. Eight rooms upstairs — book at least a month ahead in summer for the sunset (the enrosadira on Tofana is one of the great Dolomites moments). Open mid-June to mid-October.