Da Nanni

The Garda Hillside as Ingredient

There is a particular register of Italian restaurant that resists easy categorisation: not formally fine-dining, not a roadside tavern, but something in between that the lakeside Veneto has always sustained without much fanfare. Costermano sul Garda, a compact comune on the eastern bank of Lake Garda roughly midway between Verona and Riva del Garda, sits inside that tradition. The hills above the lake produce olive oil of genuine character, the altitude moderates summer heat enough to support wine grapes alongside garden vegetables, and the lake itself supplies a small but consistent freshwater catch. Restaurants that understand where they are geographically tend to cook better than those that ignore it, and Da Nanni, at Località Gazzoli 73 on the hillside above the town, occupies a position where that geography is unavoidable.

Where the Food Comes From

The argument for ingredient-driven cooking in this part of northern Italy is not ideological, it is geographical. The eastern shore of Lake Garda, the Riviera degli Ulivi, is the northernmost zone in Italy where olive trees grow in meaningful density, a function of the lake's thermal mass buffering winters that would otherwise be too harsh. Garda DOP olive oil, pressed from cultivars including Casaliva and Frantoio, carries a lighter, more delicate profile than oils from further south, less assertively bitter, more suited to dishes where the oil functions as a finishing note rather than a dominant flavour. Any kitchen working seriously with local produce in Costermano is, almost inevitably, working with this oil. The broader Veneto larder adds further depth: Lessinia plateau cattle and dairy, Soave and Bardolino wine zones within short reach, and the freshwater traditions of the lake, particularly carpione, the salmonid endemic to Garda that appears on menus across the region when seasonally available.

This is the sourcing context against which establishments like Da Nanni should be read. The Italian trattoria at its most coherent is not a fixed menu format but a local procurement system with a dining room attached. Kitchens that understand the Garda basin's seasonal rhythms, when the first-press olive oil arrives in November, when lake fish thin out, when the hills produce their leading late-summer vegetables, have a structural advantage over those running identical menus year-round. That seasonal attentiveness is what separates a trattoria with genuine terroir from one using the word loosely.

The Setting and What It Signals

Costermano sul Garda is not a resort town in the conventional sense. The lakefront action concentrates further south at Bardolino and Lazise, while the hillside comuni above the shore operate at a quieter register, agricultural, residential, oriented toward the Veronese hinterland rather than summer tourism. Gazzoli, the frazione where Da Nanni sits, underscores this: a locality defined by its position on the hillside rather than its proximity to the water. In the context of northern Italian food culture, this positioning matters. Some of the region's most interesting cooking happens in villages that non-Italian visitors drive past on the way to more photographed destinations. Dal Pescatore in Runate or Le Calandre in Rubano occupy a different price bracket and critical register entirely, as do heavily awarded rooms like Casa Perbellini 12 Apostoli in Verona, which is the nearest major city and roughly thirty minutes by road. Da Nanni operates in a category where the sourcing and the setting do the signalling rather than Michelin stars or tasting menus.

Planning a Visit

Costermano sul Garda is most accessible by car, which is the default mode for the eastern Garda shore. The A22 Autostrada del Brennero runs along the lake's western edge, with the more direct route from Verona following the SS249 north along the eastern shore through Lazise and Bardolino. For visitors combining Da Nanni with broader Garda and Veneto itineraries, the area sits within range of Verona's wine and dining circuit, useful context given the city's concentration of serious addresses. Those planning a wider Italian restaurant trip might also consider how the Garda region fits against other northern Italian dining stops: Enrico Bartolini in Milan or Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence represent the country's formally awarded tier, while addresses like Osteria Francescana in Modena and Piazza Duomo in Alba anchor the northern Italian fine-dining conversation.

The Broader Italian Trattoria Argument

Italy's most durable restaurant category is not the starred kitchen but the family-run trattoria with a genuine regional identity and a sourcing geography it has not abandoned for convenience. This format has faced pressure from every direction, tourism homogenisation, supply chain shortcuts, the gravitational pull of pan-Italian menus that please everyone and represent nowhere. The eastern Garda shore has not been entirely immune. What remains interesting about Costermano's hillside position is that it filters out some of that pressure by geography alone: fewer coach parties, a more local clientele, shorter distances to the produce sources. Uliassi in Senigallia, which grounds a creative seafood program in the Adriatic and Marche larder, and Quattro Passi in Marina del Cantone, which uses Campanian sourcing as its editorial spine. Both operate at the awarded end of the spectrum; the principle of place-rooted sourcing, however, runs across price tiers. For comparison across other European and American dining contexts, addresses like Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler in Brunico demonstrate how Alpine sourcing discipline can anchor a creative kitchen at the highest formal level, while Lazy Bear in San Francisco shows a comparable sourcing-first philosophy operating in a very different format entirely.