4 Best Restaurants in Lucca for Lunch or Dinner

Inside Lucca’s walls, a seated meal can mean a simple Tuscan lunch or an evening built around a longer dinner. Choose Trattoria da Giulio for an uncomplicated lunch, or choose Ristorante Giglio when dinner is the main event. Buca di Sant’Antonio and Osteria da Pasquale give you two more ways to eat in the historic centre, with different menus and service days.

Which table suits your meal?

Restaurant	Area inside the walls	What to order or expect	Typical per person
Trattoria da Giulio	Western centre, Via delle Conce	Tortelli with ragù	€25–40
Buca di Sant’Antonio	Western centre, Via della Cervia	Lucchese maccheroni with rabbit sauce	€40–60
Osteria da Pasquale	Central streets, Corte Morovelli	Italian cooking; choose from the menu	€35–55
Ristorante Giglio	Piazza del Giglio	Liver pâté with hazelnuts and pan brioche	€55–85

Estimates cover two courses and a glass of house wine per person, including any cover charge. Your choice of main or drink can change the bill. All four are seated restaurants inside the walls. The first three suit lunch, while Giglio makes more of dinner.

Fit lunch around the things to do in Lucca on a first visit: the western addresses suit a walk on that side of the centre. For dinner, Piazza del Giglio makes Giglio an easy landmark. These are places to sit down, not takeaway stops.

Trattoria da Giulio

Trattoria da Giulio is the straightforward Tuscan lunch choice on the western side of Lucca’s walled centre. On Via delle Conce, it suits a meal that keeps the focus on familiar regional cooking rather than a drawn-out dining occasion. If you prefer soup to pasta, the farro and bean soup offers another menu-backed way to eat here. Farro is the grain that gives the bowl its substance.

Lunch runs Monday to Saturday, 12:00–14:30. Aim for the start of service if you want a comfortable seated break before the afternoon, rather than turning up as lunch finishes. The restaurant asks you to phone 0583 55948 to request a reservation. That is the clearest way to arrange a table if your sightseeing day has a fixed lunch slot.

This is the least elaborate choice of the four: come for a Tuscan first course and an unhurried pause, then continue your walk through the old centre. The other addresses make more sense if you want the meal, rather than the day’s sights, to set the pace.

Buca di Sant’Antonio

Buca di Sant’Antonio is the choice for a more traditional Lucchese meal near the western side of the centre. Its Via della Cervia dining room makes sense when you want lunch to be a proper sit-down occasion rather than a short pause. The menu also includes a Garfagnana-style farro soup, a regional alternative if you would rather begin with something other than the rabbit-sauce pasta in the comparison above.

Lunch is served Tuesday to Sunday, 12:30–15:30. This later lunch window is useful if your morning in town runs long, but leave enough time for a seated meal rather than arriving just before service ends. For a planned table, send an online reservation request and wait for the restaurant’s confirmation. If you are arranging a meal within 24 hours, phone +39 0583 55881 instead.

The higher estimated spend than at Giulio suits a meal you intend to linger over. The reason to choose it is the emphasis on Lucchese dishes: it gives you a distinct regional dinner option as well as a lunch table, without requiring a detour outside the walls.

Osteria da Pasquale

Osteria da Pasquale suits a seated Italian meal among the central historic streets. Its Corte Morovelli address sets it apart from the two western choices, particularly if you are staying or walking in the middle of the walled centre. Choose it for the osteria setting and select your courses from the menu when you arrive, rather than heading there for a particular dish.

Lunch is served Thursday to Sunday, 12:00–15:00. That makes it an option for a weekend lunch when a central table is more useful than walking west, but not a dependable early-week lunch stop. A request through the website form or by phone at +39 339 153 4555 is not itself a reservation. The restaurant confirms it by email or phone. Leave enough time to get that reply if the meal anchors your day.

The osteria is a good middle ground when you want to sit down to a full meal without making the square-side dinner at Giglio your evening’s centrepiece. For Monday or Wednesday lunch, head elsewhere: its weekday lunch service starts on Thursday.

Ristorante Giglio

Ristorante Giglio is the dinner choice when you want the meal itself to take centre stage. It faces Piazza del Giglio inside the walls, so the square gives you a clear meeting point for an evening in the southern part of the centre. The menu moves beyond the familiar trattoria dishes: sea-urchin spaghetti is another listed choice if you want a seafood course rather than the pâté in the table.

Dinner is served Thursday to Monday, 19:15–22:00. Give this address the evening rather than trying to fit it into a hurried gap: its more considered dishes and higher typical spend make sense when you can settle in for two courses. The square is part of the setting you are choosing, but order for the food rather than assuming every table has an outdoor view.

Sources & fact-checking

Checks against the sources below cover: opening hours, services, and key figures.

• Regione Toscana — opening hours
• Buca di Sant’Antonio — service
• Buca di Sant’Antonio — key figures
• GIGLIO Ristorante — opening hours
• Ristorante Giglio — key figures
• Trattoria da Giulio — key figures
• Ristorante Da Pasquale — opening hours
• DA PASQUALE LUCCA S.R.L. — service