Where to eat in Laureana di Borrello: restaurants among olive groves and the Piana di Gioia Tauro

Laureana di Borrello sits at around 270 metres on the outer north-western edge of the Piana di Gioia Tauro, in the Mesima valley: a hill town, neither coastal nor mountain, that looks out from its Belvedere over the olive groves of the plain, the gulf of Gioia Tauro, the Tyrrhenian Sea and, on clear days, the Aeolian Islands and Etna. Here you do not eat seafood, but the food of a town built on olives, citrus and family-raised livestock, where the table follows the calendar of the community more than that of tourism. This page brings together the restaurants and trattorias of the centre and the outlying hamlets to help you find local cuisine, produce from the Piana and practical options, without relying on a static list.

The selection is updated from the listings published on the portal, where hours, contacts and menus can change. What holds the town together is the rhythm of its feasts and its market: Sunday market mornings in the centre, Holy Week with its rites, the August feast at Stelletanone and the autumn fair of San Gregorio, when the town fills up and the table becomes a way of marking the year just passed. For hours, menus, accessibility and intolerances, the individual listing remains the most reliable source.

• Ristorante San Michele — In Contrada Talaiello, among the hills of Laureana di Borrello, in the heart of the Piana di Gioia Tauro suspended between the Aspromonte…
• Partenopè di Raffaele Mazzitelli — In the heart of Laureana di Borrello, a hillside town in the Piana di Gioia Tauro poised between the Aspromonte mountains and the Costa…
• Il Paradiso del Pollo — In the heart of the Piana di Gioia Tauro, in Laureana di Borrello — a hillside town between the Aspromonte mountains and the Costa Viola…
• Ristorante Il Girasole — In the very centre of Laureana di Borrello, at Via Roma 1 - a hillside town in the Piana di Gioia Tauro nestled between the Aspromonte…

The Belvedere and a position between hill and plain

Anyone looking for a restaurant in Laureana di Borrello often starts from a precise image: the town seen from the Belvedere, the panoramic point on Via Belvedere next to the former convent of the Conventual Friars, from where the view runs over the olive and orange groves of the Piana di Gioia Tauro, over the gulf of Gioia Tauro, over the Tyrrhenian Sea and, on the clearest days, the Aeolian Islands and Etna. It is a view that tells you exactly what Laureana is: not a seaside town, but a hill centre at around 270 metres overlooking the plain without belonging to it.

This threshold position, between the Mesima valley and the Piana, is also reflected on the table: here you eat the food of the inland territory, with the olive tree as the reference crop since the earliest geographical studies of the town, together with citrus fruit and produce from family-run livestock. The restaurants and trattorias of the centre build on this identity, which belongs to the hills first, before the coast or the mountains.

Centre, Bellantone and Stelletanone: a town in three parts

The municipality of Laureana di Borrello is not a single settlement: alongside the centre lie the contiguous hamlets of Bellantone and Stelletanone, while Sant’Anna sits a little further away, at around five kilometres. Each hamlet has its own church and its own feast day, a sign of an identity that stays distinct even within a small municipality: San Pasquale Baylon in Bellantone on 17 May, San Rocco and the Immaculate Conception in Stelletanone, Sant’Anna in the hamlet of the same name on 26 July.

For anyone looking for somewhere to eat, this means the restaurants and trattorias are not all concentrated in one spot: some are in the historic centre, others in the hamlets, with kitchens that still answer to the same territory of olives and plain. The listings published on the portal state the exact hamlet, useful for understanding how far you are from the centre and how long it takes to reach a venue by car.

The Sunday market and life in the centre

Every Sunday morning Laureana di Borrello hosts its weekly market, with stalls selling food, fruit and vegetables, local produce and clothing filling the centre. It is the moment when the town is at its fullest outside the patronal feasts, and for anyone arriving on a Sunday it is also the simplest way to see where everyday life is concentrated: around the square and the market streets you naturally also find the venues where people stop to eat.

A lunch or a snack on market Sunday has a different feel from a dinner on an ordinary day: residents mix with people coming from neighbouring towns to shop and with those who stop after browsing the stalls. It is a good way to catch the real rhythm of the town, rather than an organised tourist stop.

Holy Week, San Rocco and the San Gregorio fair

The calendar of Laureana di Borrello marks when the town is full and when the restaurants are busiest. On Good Friday the Via Crucis known as “A Caduta” takes place, with living characters along the main streets, and on Easter Sunday the Affruntata carries the statues on shoulders to the meeting of the risen Christ and the Madonna. These are days when families and relatives return to the town and a shared lunch matters as much as the procession.

On 19 August the feast of San Rocco in Stelletanone draws pilgrims every year from all over Calabria, eastern Sicily and northern Italy, with concerts, fireworks and the traditional dance of the Giants spread over several August weekends: this is the period when the hamlet, and with it the venues found there, sees its highest turnout. The third Sunday of November, instead, is the day of the San Gregorio fair, tied to the patron saint and historically a pig fair: families would raise a pig all year to sell it on that very occasion, a custom that speaks of a real peasant economy rather than a postcard feast.

October to December, olive harvest time

Between October and December the olive tree returns to the centre of the town’s life: it is harvest time, which in Laureana di Borrello carries an old economic weight, so much so that as early as the 1930s the olive was described as the essential crop of the territory. The town also produced the tools of the oil cycle, such as the fiscoli used in the mills to press the olives: a specific trade, not a generic one, that told of an economy built around the tree more than the sea or the mountains.

In this period of the year, anyone looking for a restaurant in Laureana finds an atmosphere different from the summer one: less tied to feast days, more tied to fieldwork and harvests. It is a good time for a cuisine that follows the season, with new oil and produce from the Piana’s inland areas, and for understanding why here the olive tree is a family trade before it is scenery.

How to get to Laureana di Borrello

Laureana di Borrello is reached from the Rosarno exit of the A2 Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway, following the signs for the town along the road that climbs towards the hill. At the same distance lies the station of Rosarno, on the Tyrrhenian Battipaglia-Reggio Calabria line, served by Frecciarossa, Intercity, Italo and regional trains, and flanked by a bus terminal with connections towards the Piana and the Locride. The reference airports are Lamezia Terme and Reggio Calabria.

Anyone arriving without their own car therefore plans the meal around the train or bus timetables to Rosarno, while those travelling by car can combine a stop in Laureana with a visit to the nearby towns of the Piana. The historic centre is made up of narrow lanes and alleys, and the open square in front of the Belvedere is relatively recent: for this reason, rather than looking for a dedicated car park, it is worth planning around the Sunday morning market, when traffic and parking in the centre are busiest.

Frequently asked questions

Verified on 9/4/2026 · curated by Francesco De Giorgio