Authentic Experiences in Como: See Lake Como Like a Local

Start at the markets: Como’s pantry

If you want to understand a place, look at what people buy. In Como, the food markets are the most honest way to meet the city: stalls of seasonal vegetables, mountain cheeses, cured meats, bread just out of the oven, honey and a little lake fish. Nothing is staged for tourists — it’s the weekly shop of the people who actually live here, done while swapping a few words and tasting before you buy.

It’s worth going early, when the air is still cool and the stalls are full. Buy a little of everything: a few ripe tomatoes, a small wedge of cheese, fruit to eat as you walk. It’s a sensory experience before a culinary one, and it sets you up perfectly to understand where the raw ingredients come from when, in the evening, you turn them into pasta. To get your bearings on days and neighbourhoods, our guide to Como’s food markets gives you the picture without inventing hours that shift from season to season.

The most authentic thing of all: hand-rolled pasta

There is one experience that gathers up all the others, because it brings market, hands, tradition and table together in a single gesture: learning to make fresh pasta. It is the very definition of authentic — you make it with your own hands, then you eat it with other people. No shop window, no queue for a photo: just flour, eggs and the time it takes to feel how much a dough wants to be worked.

In our class you don’t watch someone cook: you do the kneading, you roll the sheet out with a pin, you cut the tagliatelle, you seal the ravioli. You’re guided by our resident chef, trained at the Accademia della Sfoglia of Rina Poletti, one of the reference schools for hand-rolled pasta. We keep it small — sessions of up to 12 guests — because everyone needs to get their hands into the flour. You’ll find the heart of it on our pasta school in Como page.

• You do it, you don’t watch. Every guest has their own station, their own flour, their own rolling pin.
• Real gestures. The sheet rolled by hand, tagliatelle cut with a knife, ravioli sealed one by one.
• It ends at the table. You cook, then you sit down to eat what you made — the most authentic moment of all.

At the end of the evening there’s also a little aperitivo lesson, Italian style: you learn to build your own spritz — Aperol or Campari, your choice — and drink it before you sit down. Dessert is gelato finished with a few drops of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP: simple, surprising, and deeply local in spirit. When you’re ready, you can book a class and pick the masterclass you like best.

The ritual of aperitivo

Aperitivo isn’t just a drink: it’s a time of day, a way of slowing down. In Como people head out in the late afternoon, sit down with a spritz or a glass of wine and a few nibbles, and let the day blur out. It’s deeply local precisely because it isn’t a show: it’s what people do, every evening, and have done for generations.

To do it well, pick a spot facing the water or a hidden courtyard in the old town, order without rushing, and stay. In our guide to aperitivo in Como we describe the spirit of the ritual and what to expect, without pretending to point you at hours or venues that change. And if aperitivo leaves you wanting more of the evening, have a look at our things to do in Como after dark.

Silk: the craft that made Como

Few visitors realise it, but Como has been a European capital of silk for centuries. Its weavers have dressed fashion across half the world, and to this day the silk craft is part of the city’s identity. Getting close to that legacy — even just by looking at a printed scarf or reading the story of a trade built on hands and patience — is an authentic way to understand why Como is what it is.

It’s a thread that runs through the whole trip: like hand-rolled pasta, silk is an art of slow, precise, handed-down gestures. To frame it, read our history of silk in Como: it will give you different eyes as you wander the shop windows in the centre.

A slow morning in the old town

Como’s most underrated experience is also its most free: a morning with no plan in the old town. Before the coach tours arrive, the cobbled lanes around the Duomo are quiet, the shutters go up one by one, the smell of coffee drifts out of the bars. Walk with no destination, sit on a bench in the square, watch people heading to work.

It’s in moments like these, more than in any single attraction, that you feel the real rhythm of the city. Stretch your walk down to the lakefront as the fishermen come back in, or stop for a cappuccino in a neighbourhood bar. These are things to do in Como that cost nothing and that you’ll remember longer than any ticket queue.

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The authentic experience, by definition: with your hands

If we had to choose a single experience to say “this is Como like a local,” it would always be the same one: making pasta with your hands and eating it together. It’s the point where market, tradition and table meet. Our pasta class in Como was built for exactly this: no show, just flour under your nails, a resident chef trained at the Accademia della Sfoglia of Rina Poletti, a spritz lesson and a gelato with Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP to finish. Whenever you like, you can book your place.