Ristorante Lido 84, Lake Garda: One of the World’s Best Restaurants
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Ristorante Lido 84, Lake Garda: One of the World’s Best Restaurants
Ristorante Lido 84, two Fluctuations tasting menus (€95 each) with cacio e pepe en vessie (€20) with Infinite Blue Wine Pairing (€70). Lido 84 also offers an a la carte tasting menu: €85, 4½ tasting menu: €120, starters: €28-36, pasta: €30-34, mains: €30-38, desserts: €18-36. Ristorante Lido 84, Corso Giuseppe Zanardelli, 196, 25083 Gardone Riviera BS, Italy. Tel. +39036520019. Lido 84's Website.
Written by Liam Collens // See other food reviews here.
Ristorante Lido 84 is one of the world's best restaurants serving impeccable food and Lake Garda views. The Michelin and World 50 Best awards are deserved and self-evident.
The Highs
The Lows
The Highs
The Lows
Ristorante Lido 84: One of the World’s Best Restaurants
I text close food friends two bites into the first course. “I could cry. It’s so good.” Lightly poached prawns tip-toe daintily between cooked and raw. Gently acidulated by a bright calamansi vinegar, tempered by apricot oil and buttressed with fresh almonds. Three delightful weeks in Italy culminates on Lake Garda’s exquisite shores.
Lido 84 enchants. Ladies and couples lunch under a leafy pergola quaffing blush Monte Rossa Flamingo Rose. Lido 84’s outdoor garden dining epitomises Italian summer elegance. Most guests sit outside shunning the shade of the equally chic teal indoor dining room. I would return to settle into the sympathetically-restored private dining room inside a tower overlooking the lake. Who wouldn’t?
Ristorante Lido 84 outdoor dining during the summer months makes for a memorable experience
It is not an overstatement to tell you this lunch skirts around perfection without so much as feeling like they are lifting a finger. The quiet confidence of a team comfortably in its stride. Lido 84 is one of the world’s best restaurants, Italian or otherwise. Lido 84 is the most enjoyable restaurant in the last three weeks in Italy. Piazza Duomo also sits within this trip. Piazza Duomo boasts three Michelin stars – two more stars and features several World’s 50 Best spots higher than Lido 84. Sure, Piazza Duomo dazzles with technique. However, ‘enjoyed’ is applied judiciously. I like Piazza Duomo, but I love Lido 84; it sparks full Kondo joy. Lake Garda glimmers in the summer sun as a backdrop to Riccardo Camanini’s vibrant, adroit cooking and Giancarlo Camanini’s instinctive charm.
Ristorante Lido 84 outdoor dining during the summer months makes for a memorable experience
Lido 84 enchants. Ladies and couples lunch under a leafy pergola quaffing blush Monte Rossa Flamingo Rose. Lido 84’s outdoor garden dining epitomises Italian summer elegance. Most guests sit outside shunning the shade of the equally chic teal indoor dining room. I would return to settle into the sympathetically-restored private dining room inside a tower overlooking the lake. Who wouldn’t?
Ristorante Lido 84 outdoor dining during the summer months makes for a memorable experience
It is not an overstatement to tell you this lunch skirts around perfection without so much as feeling like they are lifting a finger. The quiet confidence of a team comfortably in its stride. Lido 84 is one of the world’s best restaurants, Italian or otherwise. Lido 84 is the most enjoyable restaurant in the last three weeks in Italy. Piazza Duomo also sits within this trip. Piazza Duomo boasts three Michelin stars – two more stars and features several World’s 50 Best spots higher than Lido 84. Sure, Piazza Duomo dazzles with technique. However, ‘enjoyed’ is applied judiciously. I like Piazza Duomo, but I love Lido 84; it sparks full Kondo joy. Lake Garda glimmers in the summer sun as a backdrop to Riccardo Camanini’s vibrant, adroit cooking and Giancarlo Camanini’s instinctive charm.
Ristorante Lido 84 outdoor dining during the summer months makes for a memorable experience
Ristorante Lido 84 showcased a preview in Dubai
This is not my first foray with Lido 84. Familiar favourites from their earlier Tresind Studio collaboration seduce like a siren calling out from the menu. The marinda tomato and pistachio-stained fusilloni lingers as one of the pasta to ever pass these lips (€30). The 752°F smoky eggplant alla parmigiana blanketed with suave parmesan sauce deftly proves vegetarian food delights in equal measures to its beastly counterparts (€32). An al dente nest of salted butter-bathed spaghettoni with yeast is a standout dish. Mrs EatoGoSee and I slip into our chairs before Lake Garda keen for second helpings of Chef Riccardo Camanini’s one Michelin star alchemy.
Ristorante Lido 84’s indoor dining room is bathed in cool teal with panoramic views of Lake Garda; a double macchatio coffee
Ristorante Lido 84’s indoor dining room is bathed in cool teal with panoramic views of Lake Garda; a double macchatio coffee
A contrasting trail of cuttlefish ink and verdant rocket oil; as if this cephalopod beached on Lake Garda’s shores and decided Lido 84 was a noble place to expire. I am inclined to agree.
Ristorante Lido 84’s Fluctuations Menu
Lido 84’s Fluctuations demonstrates its earned 1 Michelin star and sits on the World 50 Best list (albeit between 50-100, for now).
I could wax lyrical about the technical accomplishment and contrasts. A bouncy, roasted sea bass with honey mustard and iron-rich, peppery spinach leaf. A dish that follows a supple, roasted cuttlefish purring with smoke tucked under a moss-stained pasta blanket. A contrasting trail of cuttlefish ink and verdant rocket oil, as if this cephalopod beached on Lake Garda’s shores and decidedo Lido 84 was a noble place to expire. I am inclined to agree. There is a throughline from an earlier oyster course on charred green-tinted sourdough with an unmistakable charred whisper.
Ristorante Lido 84’s roasted seabass with honey mustard and spinach; cuttlefish with ink and rocket oil
Ristorante Lido 84’s oyster drapped over charred bread giving a lovely smokey after taste
The through-line mostly flows. A minor quibble is that butter lettuce course pelted with toasted polenta, parsley and an orzo-like pasta is, dare I say, a literal contemporary pasta salad. Light but it interrupts the seafood courses. The lettuce course is the one I could do without.
Ristorante Lido 84’s butter lettuce with toasted polenta and pasta
Still, Lido 84’s menu is imaginative and delights. The cacio e pepe en vessie draws tableside drama as our chef tumbles rigatoni inside a pig’s bladder filled with pecorino cheese, salt and black pepper. Romans carried food in a pig’s bladder travelling between states inspiring a contemporary adaptation. The rigatoni is pre-al dente, resilient and, sure, I would like more black pepper, but this cacio e pepe satisfies like only cheesy pasta knows how.
A sticky braised beef cheeks shreds into soft gutsy, rib-sticking threads with sheer willpower. The mashed potato ratte defy physics; so soft, Mrs EatGoSee begrudgingly comments it is better than my own homemade Joël Robuchon pomme purée. Damn you, Riccardo! This is all I have going for me in this marriage.
Ristorante Lido 84’s cacio e pepe is cooked inside a pig’s bladder poached over boiling water; amuse bouche of fried courgette flower with tapioca
Ristorante Lido 84’s braised beef cheek served with their delicious pomme puree
We finish our meal dredging sticky fruit ladened pastry through canary yellow zabaglione sitting in share silence watching ducks bob around Lake Garda. Fellow diners roar off in a Riva Aquarama as we wave them off.
I romanticised my next trip to Lido 84 with Giancarlo Camanini barely moments after settling the bill. There is a thrumming drumbeat that calls you back. There is tradition but with a sense that this is the future of contemporary Italian cooking. Lido 84 skates to where the puck will be like Steve Jobs would say. I long to return to Lido 84
Seafood enthusiasts, Michelin star collectors, Italian food lovers. Those who enjoy modern contemporary food and any alfresco dining fans.
Ristorante Lido 84’s foamy, light zabaglione
Ristorante Lido 84’s wine pairing adds some cost but well worth it to sample some impressive Italian wines; Lake Garda makes for a beautiful back drop
Ristorante Lido 84’s impresses in its attention to detail. You sense years of meticulous trial and error drawing inspiration from its environs.
Ristorante Lido 84’s dessert courses at which point sheer greed caused me to presevere.
I could wax lyrical about the technical accomplishment and contrasts. A bouncy, roasted sea bass with honey mustard and iron-rich, peppery spinach leaf. A dish that follows a supple, roasted cuttlefish purring with smoke tucked under a moss-stained pasta blanket. A contrasting trail of cuttlefish ink and verdant rocket oil, as if this cephalopod beached on Lake Garda’s shores and decidedo Lido 84 was a noble place to expire. I am inclined to agree. There is a throughline from an earlier oyster course on charred green-tinted sourdough with an unmistakable charred whisper.
Ristorante Lido 84’s roasted seabass with honey mustard and spinach; cuttlefish with ink and rocket oil
Ristorante Lido 84’s oyster drapped over charred bread giving a lovely smokey after taste
The through-line mostly flows. A minor quibble is that butter lettuce course pelted with toasted polenta, parsley and an orzo-like pasta is, dare I say, a literal contemporary pasta salad. Light but it interrupts the seafood courses. The lettuce course is the one I could do without.
Ristorante Lido 84’s butter lettuce with toasted polenta and pasta
Still, Lido 84’s menu is imaginative and delights. The cacio e pepe en vessie draws tableside drama as our chef tumbles rigatoni inside a pig’s bladder filled with pecorino cheese, salt and black pepper. Romans carried food in a pig’s bladder travelling between states inspiring a contemporary adaptation. The rigatoni is pre-al dente, resilient and, sure, I would like more black pepper, but this cacio e pepe satisfies like only cheesy pasta knows how.
A sticky braised beef cheeks shreds into soft gutsy, rib-sticking threads with sheer willpower. The mashed potato ratte defy physics; so soft, Mrs EatGoSee begrudgingly comments it is better than my own homemade Joël Robuchon pomme purée. Damn you, Riccardo! This is all I have going for me in this marriage.
Ristorante Lido 84’s cacio e pepe is cooked inside a pig’s bladder poached over boiling water; amuse bouche of fried courgette flower with tapioca
Ristorante Lido 84’s braised beef cheek served with their delicious pomme puree
We finish our meal dredging sticky fruit ladened pastry through canary yellow zabaglione sitting in share silence watching ducks bob around Lake Garda. Fellow diners roar off in a Riva Aquarama as we wave them off.
Would I Return to Lido 84?
I romanticised my next trip to Lido 84 with Giancarlo Camanini barely moments after settling the bill. There is a thrumming drumbeat that calls you back. There is tradition but with a sense that this is the future of contemporary Italian cooking. Lido 84 skates to where the puck will be like Steve Jobs would say. I long to return to Lido 84
Who Should Come to Lido 84?
Seafood enthusiasts, Michelin star collectors, Italian food lovers. Those who enjoy modern contemporary food and any alfresco dining fans.
Ristorante Lido 84’s foamy, light zabaglione
Ristorante Lido 84’s wine pairing adds some cost but well worth it to sample some impressive Italian wines; Lake Garda makes for a beautiful back drop
Ristorante Lido 84’s impresses in its attention to detail. You sense years of meticulous trial and error drawing inspiration from its environs.
Ristorante Lido 84’s dessert courses at which point sheer greed caused me to presevere.
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