The Best Food Corner In Udine Italy, A Hidden Gem

Udine is not the place that comes into your mind when thinking about great food in Italy. In fact, Udine is unfortunately not the place that comes into your mind at all. But it shouldn’t be like this.

We visited this city literally by chance, and we were amazed by its charm. But that’s another story. Here I want to share with you one special part of the city where we found one of the best pizza places and ice cream shops in Italy.

Continue reading to learn how we happened to find these places, what our experience was and of course where can you find them.

The Best Ice Cream in Udine

We happend to find a hotel at the edge of the old town in Udine. We stopped at Hotel Suite Inn for literally one night when going home from Tuscany, as I simply did not want to drive for 16 hours straight. The hotel was in a good location, and we decided to take a walk in the city late at night after we arrived.

It was already after 10 PM when we turned onto a small street that lead to the historic city center. Right there a shiny shop was still open, with a welcoming “Cuore di Panna” (literally Hearts of Cream, meaning good heart) and a large ice cream sign. Unmistakably an ice cream shop, open after 10PM. Which was surprising at first, but we liked the idea.

And if that wasn’t enough, we were not at all in a touristic or any other way trendy place. Just in the middle of a street where literally no one else walked at that time beside us.

To try it or not to try it, that was our question. Eating a good ice cream at the middle of the night seemed like a good idea, but on the other hand, entering an empty ice cream shop in an empty street, can it be any good? Finally we decided to go in and try it, and boy were we happy to do so!

The place is nothing special from the inside, there is not even a place to sit down. By the way, someone literally pointed out this as a con in a Google review, which I don’t really get. What is it that you want man? Great ice cream or a place to sit down?

Anyways, there is not a single aspect to this place that I could criticize. We’ve tested the ice cream here since several times, and each end every flavor that we tried turned out to be fantastic. To tell you the truth, this is the only ice cream shop so far all over Italy that we found with no flavor to complain about.

We did chat a bit with the owner and he told us that he’d been making ice creams for 35 years. A great work experience used in a definitely beneficial way.

You must definitely try this place when you are in Udine! I could even say that you might think about visiting Udine just to try this exceptional ice cream!

Where is it Located?

Gelateria Cuore di Panna is located on Via Anton Lazzaro Moro in Udine.

The Pizzeria You Must Try

The other place that is literally only a few steps from our beloved ice cream shop is actually not that easy to try.

What I mean is that it is a restaurant and its opening hours are like for most restaurants in Italy. Only during lunch and dinner, but they don’t even open for lunchtime on Wednesdays and Sundays. So you literally have only a couple of hours every day to taste Italian pizza here. But it’s worth even coming back, should you find the place closed.

That’s just what we did. We did not have luck the first time as we arrived Saturday evening and left Sunday morning. Already closed at night, and did not open until next afternoon. So we went home without trying this place, only looking at the comforting flames in the large wood fire oven as they made the last pizzas of the day before closing.

But the place had such an appealing look and ambience even from the outside that we decided we would definitely try it someday. We did not have to wait too much as on our next trip back home from Switzerland, just two weeks later, we drove through Italy and stopped by Udine. I wouldn’t deny that the reason to come here was to visit our secret food corner. Eat our favorite ice cream and have the chance to try the Pizzeria alla Lampara.

I’m not saying that this is the best pizza you can get in Italy. There are definitely exceptional places around the country, and I would even say that you can get better pizza in some other places than what you get here. What I’m saying though is that unfortunately you will be disappointed in a lot of pizza restaurants in this country, but alla Lampara is definitely not that place.

Pizza is such a staple of Italian cuisine, than when you come to this country you would think that everywhere you go you’re gonna get an exceptional one. But then, when you sit down at a random place, you suddenly discover that not all pizzerias are made equal, not even here. You’re going to find out pretty soon that just because you are in Italy, it doesn’t mean that all the pizza you try would be great.

But that’s not the case here at alla Lampara. The pizza they make is exceptional and I guarantee you’re going to enjoy it if you love real Neapolitan style pizza.

What We Ate

I already liked the menu just by looking at it. It was simple enough yet everyone could get there favorite pizza. They don’t have too many choices, around 15-20 pizzas. Modern takes on classic pizza recipes but fortunately not overly modern. Sometimes, even in Italy, you think that it’s too much what they want to sell you as modern pizza. Here I think they found the great balance between tradition and modern expectations.

My favorite sign on the menu was a small yellow star, indicating what are the favorites around here. A quick peek into what Italians actually love when they order pizza.

We tried two of those favorite ones. Cinquantasette (cooked tomatoes, mozzarella, spicy salami, anchovies, Pecorino Romano) and Crêuza De Ma (tomato, mozzarella, ricotta, sun dried tomatoes, pesto). And I can tell you that both of them were fantastic and we loved them both.

Verticale di Margherita was our third choice. A modern take on the classic margherita pizza, with 4 different types of tomatoes. It was actually really good, other than our first small disappointment that it did not have the classic red tomato sauce that you expect from a margherita.

Anyhow, I definitely recommend you to come here and try this place also if you crave a real authentic Italian pizza!

Where is it Located?

Pizzeria alla Lampara is located on the corner at Piazzale Paolo Diacono in Udine Italy. It is literally only a few steps from the aforementioned ice cream shop.

The best afternoon you can spend in Udine is start with an awesome Italian pizza and then finish it with an exceptional ice cream.