The best shopping in the Italian Lakes
The Lakes offer great shopping opportunities, with food and wines making for excellent souvenirs. From family-run shops brimming with local produce, excellent cheeses, cured meats, olive oils and wines from vineyards around the lakes and markets stalls groaning with delicacies, to snazzy boutiques lining the streets of Como, Bellagio, and Salò, Telegraph Travel Italian Lakes expert, Kiki Deere, gives her top shopping recommendations.
For further Italian Lakes inspiration, see our guides to the area's best hotels, restaurants, nightlife and things to do in Lake Como, Lake Garda and the surrounding lakes.
Find places to shop by area
Lake Como
Sartoria Orefice
Run by the same family for five generations, this is one of Italy’s oldest tailors, producing made-to-measure suits since 1856. Bespoke suits are exclusively made by hand in the workshop, with each step, from the choice of fabric to the final fitting, personally supervised by the tailors. Private workroom tours shed light on the family values that lie at the core of the business, and feature expert tips on how to dress well; a visit to the haberdashery is included in the tour.
Contact: sartoriaorefice.com
Prices: £££
Gioielleria Lopez
This quirky shop that doubles as a tearoom is jam-packed with vintage items and rare pieces of handmade jewellery dating to the 1600s. Glass-fronted cabinets display all manner of objects that the affable owner has acquired over the years from private vendors and flea markets in Italy and beyond: evening dresses from the 1800s, ostrich feather fans, flashy glasses from the Twenties and Thirties, and 1940’s-Hollywood bijoux. Along the walls, objects are on display in niches featuring cast-iron doors reclaimed from 19th-century stoves. The place brims with character.
Contact: 00 39 031 242 043
Opening times: Tues-Sat, 10am-12:30pm and 3:30-7pm
Prices: ££
Le Specialità Lariane
This delightful family-run deli has been serving all manner of local specialities since 1985. You’ll find dried missoltini, preserved and dried shad traditionally enjoyed with polenta, along with trout, char and eel, smoked and marinated at the family’s culinary workshop on the lake and conveniently sold vacuum sealed. There’s a good selection of local wines, olive oils, honey and liqueurs prepared with a blend of local herbs and roots, as well as pasta sauces, jars of vegetables preserved in olive oil and lovely gift boxes. There’s a branch in Cernobbio and another in Lenno.
Contact: lespecialitalariane.it
Prices: ££
Sense of Lake
This online boutique stocks a wide range of bold and fun capsule collections that breathe Lake Como vibes, from beachwear items to statement-making travel accessories that reflect the glamour of la dolce vita. You’ll find Bric’s suitcases and fashionable swimwear embellished with vintage prints of the lake alongside L.G.R. sunglasses, Le Ninè handbags, Borsalino Panama hats, and Chez Dede and Mantero silk scarves – so that you can look the part as you sit back poolside before nipping off for a boat ride across the lake.
Contact: senseoflake.com
Prices: £££
Lake Orta
Mastro Geppetto
This family-run company has been producing handmade Pinocchio puppets for over 60 years. Different variations of wooden puppets are assembled in the workshop, where eyes, heads, hair and mouths are painstakingly hand-painted by skilled artisans, and then exported around the world. Workshop tours take in various stages of the production cycle, shedding light on the history of the family business and showcasing the artisans’ incredible skill and meticulous attention to detail (call a couple of days ahead to book). In the shop you’ll find over 100 Pinocchio-themed articles, from games and souvenirs to piggy banks and pencils.
Contact: mastrogeppetto.net
Prices: £
Lake Maggiore
Luigi Guffanti 1876
In 1876, Luigi Guffanti purchased an abandoned silver mine to season his beloved gorgonzola cheese, knowing that in the cavernous interiors temperature and humidity would remain constant throughout the year. Since then, the family have been refining cheeses, buying from producers and aging them to perfection. In the shop’s natural underground ageing cellar are all manner of Alpine cheeses, along with aged Parmigiano Reggiano DOP and robiola, a soft-ripened cheese made with raw cow, goat and sheep’s milk. Staff are on hand to educate on the aging processes and to guide your choice, with tastings and guided visits of the underground cellar available.
Contact: guffantiformaggi.com
Prices: ££
La Casera
This quintessential family-run shop is an authentic larder of savoury delights. Hams hang from ceiling hooks, shelves support local products and the deli bursts with mountain cheeses such as Toma Buscagnina and Bettelmatt, both sourced from nearby Val d’Ossola, alongside robiola incavolata, a delicious goat cheese from Piedmont that is wrapped and aged in cabbage leaves for twenty days. Cheeses are carefully selected and seasoned in the cellar, meats are cured in-house, while the excellent wines are sourced from small producers in Piedmont. With a handful of tables, this cosy deli is a great spot to enjoy meat and cheese boards paired with a glass of wine for an evening aperitivo.
Contact: formaggidieros.it
Prices: £
Lake Iseo
Sorelle Bonardi
This welcoming family-run shop in the historical heart of Iseo has been selling all manner of artisan cheeses since 1890. The counter groans with carefully sourced local specialities including silter, a delicate sweet hard cheese from Val Camonica, bagòss, a hard and crumbly Alpine cheese with spicy tones, and wheels of fatulì, a rare goat cheese from nearby Val Saviore with a sharp smoky flavour. You’ll also find cold cuts, pastas, mustards, jams, local olive oils, marinated vegetables and traditional sun-dried sardines – a speciality of Lake Iseo. It’s a great little place to pick up gifts for foodie friends.
Contact: 00 39 347 5400820
Opening times: Tues-Sat, 8am-12:30pm and 4-7pm, Sunday, 8am-12pm
Prices: £
Lake Garda
Latteria Turnaria
High up in the town of Tignale, this shop is run by a cooperative aiming to restore the value of Lake Garda’s lands, encouraging local producers to take over abandoned vineyards and olive groves. The focus is on organic products, in particular extra virgin olive oil and its derivatives. Milk, produced on Alpine farms, is used to make fresh cheese, handpicked fruits to make jams, while honey is sourced from beehives dotted around the Tignale plateau. On the shelves you’ll also find pasta, seasoned salamis, Garda wines, prosecco and grappa. Guided tours that shed light on the cooperative’s history are available.
Contact: latteriaturnaria.it
Prices: ££
Agraria Riva del Garda Cantina Frantoio
Run by oil and winemaking cooperative Agraria Riva del Garda, this store offers an excellent array of top-quality local produce sourced from small to medium-sized producers. Indulge in pâtés, pastas and local specialities such as carne salada, thinly cut lean beef served cold as an appetiser or enjoyed grilled with beans. A section of the shop is dedicated to the cooperative’s own award-winning whites, reds and Trentodoc sparkling wines, as well as a selection of excellent olive oils some of which have also won awards over the years. Wine and olive oil tastings can be organised within the shop.
Contact: store.agririva.it
Prices: £££
Molino Pellegrini
Family-run Molino Pellegrini in northern Lake Garda has been milling maize and buckwheat since 1903, making it one of the very few mills that are still active in the region. It prides itself on its artisanal production methods that to this day use original 20th century machinery combined with traditional, manual processes to create niche artisanal products. From the mill shop, you can peer into the ground floor production area (group tours available on request) and stock up on a range of maize products, including cornmeal biscuits, breadsticks and polenta crisps, making this the perfect place to stock up on gluten-free goods. You’ll even find soaps made with maize bran and honey.
Contact: molinopellegrini.it
Prices: £
Comincioli
At this friendly family-run winery and olive-oil producer, olives are exclusively picked by hand. They’re pitted to obtain oil from the pulp alone and are rigorously prevented from coming into contact with air, thereby protecting the oil from oxidation and resulting in a healthy and highly nutritious product. The extra virgin olive oil is packed in attractive glass bottles that come in a variety of sizes, including stylish 100ml bottles that make for great little gifts (they’re perfect stocking fillers for foodie friends). Guided tours are organised, and tastings, available on request, allow visitors to sample Comincioli’s four award-winning olive oils.
Contact: comincioli.it
Salumeria Lenotti
Found in the small village of San Zeno di Montagna, this family-run shop has been selling artisanal cured meats since 1968, with recipes handed down from generation to generation. The deli counter displays all manner of cold cuts, including pancetta, lard, speck, coppa (a traditional Italian pork cold-cut), and nosetta del Monte Baldo, a lean type of salami that is traditionally enjoyed with rocket, olive oil and parmesan shavings. Local products such as jams, honey and olive oil line the shelves, and there’s a good selection of wines sourced from small vineyards in the area.
Contact: salumerialenotti.com
Prices: ££
How we choose
Every attraction and activity in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from world-class museums to family-friendly theme parks – to best suit every type of traveller. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations.
