Le Cedrare

The Verdict

If you're deciding between Le Cedrare and driving into Verona for a more polished mid-range dinner, stay in Illasi. Le Cedrare delivers a quality of cooking that most €€€ restaurants in the city struggle to match, at a €€ price point, inside one of the most quietly compelling dining rooms in the Valpolicella valley. Two consecutive Michelin Plate recognitions (2024 and 2025) confirm this isn't an accident. Book it for your next visit rather than treating it as a backup option.

The Setting

The room was originally a limonaia — an 18th-century conservatory built to shelter citrus trees through the winters of the Villa Perez-Pompei-Sagramoso estate. Arriving, you pass through a garden before entering a space that still carries the proportions and light of its agricultural past. For a returning diner, this setting never quite loses its effect: the architecture does quiet work before a single dish arrives. It is the kind of room that makes you slow down, which is exactly what the cooking rewards.

The Cooking

Le Cedrare's owner-chef grounds the menu in the produce and traditions of the Illasi valley and broader Veneto region, but the presentation is precise enough to read as modern cuisine rather than rustic trattoria. That is the central proposition here: you are eating food that is genuinely of this place — including extra-virgin olive oil pressed from groves in the surrounding countryside, with a small tasting selection available, but plated with a level of care that signals ambition without pretension.

For a returning guest, this matters. On a second visit you can stop orienting yourself and start engaging more deliberately with what the kitchen is doing with local ingredients. The olive oil tasting is worth returning to specifically: it is not a gimmick but a direct expression of the farm-to-table reality that many restaurants gesture toward without delivering.

The cuisine sits at a point where careful technique meets honest regionality. Compared to the maximalist ambition you'd encounter at, say, Osteria Francescana in Modena or the refined grandeur of Le Calandre in Rubano, Le Cedrare operates in a quieter register. That is not a concession, it is the correct register for what this kitchen is trying to do. If you want intellectual provocation on the plate, those venues will serve you better. If you want food that is rooted, well-executed, priced without the markup that attaches to destination dining, Le Cedrare is the better answer.

Value and Booking

At €€, Le Cedrare is meaningfully affordable against the benchmark of Michelin-recognised dining in northern Italy. The Plate recognition from Michelin confirms a standard of cooking that earns comparison with more expensive venues. For context, a comparable meal at Casa Perbellini 12 Apostoli in Verona, a fine choice in its own right, will cost you considerably more for a similar grounding in Veneto tradition, with a more formal register. Le Cedrare gives you the cooking without the ceremony tax.

Booking is direct. Illasi is a small town and Le Cedrare draws a mix of local regulars and visitors making the short drive from Verona and the surrounding wine country. A few days' notice is generally sufficient outside peak summer weekends, though for Friday and Saturday evenings in July and August, booking a week ahead is sensible. No phone or website data is available in our records, so check current availability through a local booking aggregator or contact the restaurant directly via the address at Via Perez Pompei, 2, Illasi.

Who Should Book

Le Cedrare is particularly well suited to diners who are already spending time in the Valpolicella or Soave wine regions and want a meal that matches the quality of what's in the glass. It also works well as a destination in itself for Verona-based visitors looking to eat somewhere genuinely regional rather than tourist-adjacent. If you've been once and enjoyed it, a second visit is easy to justify, the kitchen's focus on seasonal and local ingredients means the menu evolves, the olive oil program alone gives you a reason to come back with more attention.

It is not the right choice if you want a formal tasting menu experience with wine pairings and table-side theatre. For that format in the broader Veneto region, Enrico Bartolini in Milan or the precision of Piazza Duomo in Alba are more appropriate benchmarks, at a correspondingly higher price. Le Cedrare operates in a different but equally valid space: casual in setting, serious in execution, honest in price.

For more dining options in the area, see our full Illasi restaurants guide. If you're planning a longer stay, our Illasi hotels guide, our Illasi wineries guide, and our Illasi experiences guide are useful companions. For a drink before or after, check our Illasi bars guide.