The 10 best restaurants in Passo Tonale
People have been skiing around the Tonale Pass since the early part of the 20th century. In 1912, the Touring Club of Italy recommended the nearby village of Ponte di Legno as “the first winter sports destination in Italy”.
Today, the village forms one half of the Pontedilegno-Tonale ski area, with 100km of pistes that are reliably snow-sure. The lifts top out at 3,000m, and the north-facing runs near the top are underpinned by the ice of the Presena Glacier.
There are excellent dining options to be found all over the mountain, as well as in the ski area’s two base stations: Passo Tonale and Ponte di Legno.
Passo Tonale is purpose-built, and mostly dates from the 1960s and 1970s. The village runs along both sides of the eponymous pass connecting the regions of Lombardy and Trentino, and has plenty of budget and mid-priced restaurants. Ponte di Legno, a self-contained settlement a few hundred vertical metres below on the Lombardy side, is older, with a few more upmarket options, including some lovely dinner spots close to its central 17th-century church.
For further Passo Tonale inspiration, see our guides to the resort's best accommodation and après ski.
Find a restaurant by location
On the mountain
La Tana dell’Orso
With a name that translates as “the bear’s lair”, this refurbished chalet-style spa hotel is a great place to hunker down and hibernate with a warm vin brulé on cold days. If it’s sunny, there’s a lovely terrace outside, surrounded by a wooden stockade. The buildings are tucked away in the woods on the edge of a piste that doesn’t really lead anywhere, but the food is well worth the detour. You can reach it by road too, and it’s a great place to have dinner if you’re staying in Ponte di Legno.
The kitchen serves a superior take on slopeside dishes, with a lunch menu that includes a primo cannelloni with mushrooms, chestnuts and Camino truffle sauce and a vegetarian main course of cauliflower steak with green pepper and Franciacorta sauce, served with bread crumble. Their dinner menu is fancier still, with starters including an excellent venison tartare. The wine list is extensive, and if you stop by at après time, they mix a mean negroni.
Price: £££
Contact: pontedilegnotonale.com
Closest lift / piste: Sozzine / Pegra
Panorama 3000
Panorama 3000 – so-called because it offers incredible views in every direction – sits on a narrow col at the top of the Presena gondola, the highest lift in the whole ski area. On one side you can see the pistes snaking back towards town down the Presena Glacier, and the 3,500m-high peaks of the Ortler group beyond. On the other side, the mighty Adamello Glacier.
More of a café than a full-blown restaurant, Panorama serves homemade panini, meat and cheese boards, cakes, tarts and strudel, as well as drinks. On sunny days, the outdoor tables can get pretty busy. During the First World War, when Trentino was still a province of Austria, a battle was fought on this frozen pass, and if you look closely, you can still see the remains of a couple of machine-gun nests. These days, thankfully, the only shooting done is visitors taking a selfie in front of the restaurant’s brightly-coloured 3,000m sign.
Price: £
Contact: rifugipassotonale.it
Closest lift / piste: Presena gondola / Ghiacciao Presena
Capanna Valbione
The rustic Capanna Valbione chalet is at the top of the Valbione chairlift from Ponte di Legno, in a beautiful position overlooking a small lake and the mountains beyond. The interiors are classic mountain hut – wooden walls festooned with vintage skis, old photos and antlers. There are also various rusting relics recovered from First World War battlefields up on the Tonale Pass.
The ground floor is self-service, and renowned for its excellent pizzas. If you head upstairs, it’s table service. The dishes are pretty standard mountain fare: gnocchi with wild boar sauce, venison carpaccio, lots of dishes with polenta, and they’re all tasty and cooked with flair.
Price: ££
Contact: capannavalbione.com
Closest lift / piste: Valbione / Valbione
Rifugio Petitpierre al Corno d’Aola
Built on the ruins of an old fort dating back to the early part of the 20th century, Rifugio Petitpierre is near the top of the Corno d’Aola lift, above Ponte di Legno. This is the oldest part of the ski area, and used to be the start point of the first, single-person chairlift.
Inside, the refuge has wood-panelled walls and a 1970s chalet aesthetic; outside, there’s a terrace which offers amazing views. The food is great value, and includes delicious pasta dishes such as blueberry tagliolini with gorgonzola sauce, as well as dishes like pizzoccheri, a Lombardian speciality made with buckwheat pasta, chard and lashings of cheese.
If you’re after a quick bite, there’s also a hatch on the terrace that serves a bar menu of sandwiches, wraps and burgers.
Price: £
Contact: rifugiocornodaola.it
Malga Valbiolo Bar Restaurant
An eaterie with a large outdoor area on the sunny, southern-facing slopes of Passo Tonale, Malga Valbiolo offers both self-service and à la carte options. The quality of the self-service food far outstrips the stuff you’d find in your average cantina-style joint, and the restaurant’s lasagna in particular is excellent.
The main room was once a cowshed, used when the cattle were on high-altitude pastures in summer, so there’s plenty of space inside for cold snowy days. A modern extension at the back expands the capacity still further. But the best thing about this is the sun terrace, which often hosts live bands from mid-afternoon onwards.
Price: £
Contact: rifugipassotonale.it
Closest lift / piste: Contradbbandieri / Contradbbandieri
In resort
Kro
Technically in Temù, the village just to the west of Ponte di Legno, Kro is worth the short drive or taxi ride if you’re staying in town. In fact, the food is so good we’d even recommend driving down if you’re staying in Passo Tonale. The restaurant is an old stone building with a gorgeous vaulted wine cellar and wooden fittings. The decor is “chalet chic”, with wolfskins and old photos on the walls, but the food is anything but traditional.
Their beautifully presented dishes include veal liver ravioli with sage and nuts as a primo, and angus rump steak with melted truffle-infused cheese and mash. The menu and vibe has earned Kro a mention in the latest edition of the Michelin Guide (if not a star), but the prices remain eminently reasonable. The wine selection, which lines the walls of the cellar in vintage racks, runs the whole gamut from “cheap and drinkable” to “serious sommelier stuff”.
Price: ££
Contact: facebook.com/kro.ristorante
Pizzeria Bar Alpi
Up in Passo Tonale, the simple, family-friendly Pizzeria Bar Alpi has an extensive pizza menu including bacon with delicious chanterelle mushrooms, sausage, spicy Mexican-style and vegetarian options. It also makes good soups and pasta dishes, and everything is incredibly reasonably priced, given you’re 1,800m above sea level in a ski resort.
The interior isn’t anything special, with standard wood-panelled walls and red-patterned tablecloths, but it’s cosy and welcoming. There’s an excellent selection of local craft beers as well as draught lager, and decent, reasonably priced wines. If you’re looking for a wallet-friendly option, this is a great place to try.
Price: £
Contact: facebook.com/Pizzeria-Bar-Alpi
El Volt
El Volt offers a slightly more modernist aesthetic than Kro, but stone and wood still feature heavily in its recently renovated building in Ponte di Legno’s historic centre, a short walk from the Santissima Trinità church. Run by two brothers, Luca and Stefano Negri, the restaurant serves high-end food with an emphasis on local ingredients.
Highlights include Piemontese-style ravioli stuffed with black truffle from nearby Valcamonica and served with parmesan cream, and beef cheeks braised in local Merlot, with mash. The wine list covers most of the Italian peninsula, with a large selection of Tuscan and Piemontese reds, as well as plentiful local varieties.
Price: £££
Contact: el-volt.jimdosite.com
Redival
A modern wood and glass structure, Redival sits right on the snow between the start point of two main chairlifts, making it a great option for a ski-in, ski-out lunch as well as dinner. The main restaurant is self-service, with pasta and polenta dishes that change daily. It also cooks fresh pizzas to order. Outside, there’s a grill which sells hamburgers and freshly made panini through a hatch to those sunning themselves on the extensive terrace.
Given its position, Redival is also a popular spot for après ski, and tends to get busy about the time that everyone is finishing their day on the slopes. On special occasions (like the season opening or closing), the parties can get pretty wild, but otherwise it’s a lovely spot to hang out, soak up some rays and enjoy a leisurely lunch.
Price: ££
Contact: facebook.com/redivalpassotonale
Bio Agritur Maso Celesta
This atmospheric agriturismo is a little way out of town, in the tiny hamlet of Stavel, but it’s well worth the 10-minute drive or taxi ride for dinner one night if you’re staying in Passo Tonale. Like all agriturismi, Maso Celesta is a working farm, with cows, alpacas, rabbits and chickens, and much of its produce – including meat and cheese – is made on site.
The restaurant is an old wooden construction built in the classic alpine style with the barn underneath. In times gone by, the rising heat from farmers’ livestock would help heat the house. At Maso Celesta, a recent, stylish refurbishment has replaced a large section of the floor with reinforced glass panels,so you can look down and see the cows below.
Like the architecture, the food is all about emphasising closeness to the land, with a focus on organic and “kilometre zero” ingredients. Highlights include its homemade meat and cheese board, a barley risotto made with apple and speck (a local type of cured meat), and pork cheeks. Its selection of local and organic wines is excellent too.
Price: ££
Contact: bioagriturcelesta.it
How we choose
Every restaurant in this curated list has been expertly chosen by our ski expert, following years of experience on the slopes. We cover a range of budgets, from piste-side huts to Michelin-starred restaurants – to best suit every skier’s taste – and consider the food, service, best tables, atmosphere and price in our recommendations, with options both in the resort and on the mountain. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest opening and provide up to date recommendations.
Meet our expert
Tristan Kennedy is a British journalist based in the Italian Dolomites. He's been snowboarding for more than 25 years, and specialises in stories about adventure sports and the environment.
