A classic Italian restaurant website typically includes enticing photos and descriptions of this age-old cuisine. Customers will also want to see the menu, complete with descriptions if the dishes are in Italian, and the location, operating hours, contact details, and reservation capabilities on the site.
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Zarla checks that sites meet basic web standards for mobile and desktop. We also use Google's PageSpeed Insights, and WAVE, a service that evaluates accessibility for individuals with disabilities. PageSpeed scores and accessibility are important factors for search engine rankings. PageSpeed scores may not match user experience and can vary substantially.
Coral Gables, Florida, U.S.
Tullio serves authentic Italian dishes for both lunch and dinner. The site has a minimalist flair with the chosen typeface conveying a retro typewritten document. The choice of images complements the simple style while conveying the ambiance of the restaurant and the modern style of the dishes.
I liked the hero image and the fact that most information is available on the home page, but I did think the black text on the white background got a bit bland after a while. I was also missing pricing information on the menu.
The site has a wonderful minimalist approach that cuts down on the scrolling time. The hero image is high quality and enticing, and the addition of a press page is an interesting choice. The page dedicated to wine is a good choice for an Italian restaurant, and all the candid photos of the owners create a personal feeling.
According to accessScan, the site is not compliant with assistive technologies. WAVE reported just over 20 errors on the home page, including empty links and poor contrast. I found that the reservation link in the top menu didn't work and I had to scroll down to the footer to use that link. The text over the hero image is far too small with poor contrast.
While I loved the hero image on the desktop site, I found the image of the restaurant to be far too large — I had to scroll for a while to see the whole image. I also wished the image of the special was a bit smaller too, so I could see the name of the dish at the same time as the image.
Having the address, operating hours, and social media links at the top of the home page is a good idea, but the text was too small to be immediately noticed. The menu over the hero image also showed poor legibility, with the white text having poor contrast over the image. PageSpeed Insights reported an excellent performance score of 94/100 for the desktop site's home page.
On the mobile site, the address, social media links, and operating hours made a bit more of an impression over the hero image, but only because of the size of the screen. However, the text still showed poor contrast. I found it interesting that expanding the hamburger menu caused the hero image to expand to hold the menu.
While I found the menu to be less legible than on the desktop site, the images of the special and the location looked better, as I was able to see the whole image at once. While the menu stayed with me as I scrolled on the desktop site, this was not the case on the mobile site, so I had to scroll back up to find it. PageSpeed Insights reported slow loading times on the mobile site's home page, giving it 68/100 for performance.
https://lafontanarestaurant.co.uk/
Blackpool, England, U.K.
La Fontana is a family-owned Italian restaurant in Blackpool. The site is simply designed, featuring a hero banner of rotating images, a short bio, menus, and contact information. While I enjoyed the images of food in the hero banner, I found the addition of candid shots to be a bad choice, as these were often poor resolution.
The three menus on the site include clear item descriptions and pricing, although the a la carte menu is not as clear as the other two. While there are social media links on the home page, they could be done better, with icons instead of the full app names in what looks like a single link. The bookings section could also be updated to use more white space.
WAVE reported only a small number of errors on the home page, including some contrast errors and multiple form labels. The site is very simple, providing customers with only the essential information, including menu options with clear pricing.
The site is only semi-compliant with assistive technologies and does need a more modern update. The bookings page involves a lot of reading just to tell customers they can only call to book, and the opening hours, contact details, and location should be more prominently displayed — at the moment, this information is lost in the paragraphs of text.
The desktop site welcomes visitors with a large hero image that would take up too much space on other sites but works on this site due to the limited text blocks used. The images are enticing, but the large size does allow you to see some unfortunate details — like the poor resolution of the candid shots, one of which includes a very bored-looking person.
The menu style featured on the desktop site offers clear legibility, but the bookings page is one block of text, which I didn't really want to read through. I would have preferred the information to be listed concisely. On PageSpeed Insights, the desktop site's home page received a performance score of 72/100.
The mobile site is dominated by images, but the smaller size of the hero banner allows the images to shine with better quality — and the bored person could be missed. While the kids' menu is short enough that the smaller screen doesn't impact it, I found the a la carte menu too small to be legible.
As on the desktop site, the bookings page could be streamlined to avoid the text-heavy look. PageSpeed Insights rated the mobile site's home page higher than the desktop site's, with a performance score of 79/100.
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Posticino, or Little Place, was started by two friends and strives to serve authentic Italian dishes in a relaxed atmosphere in what is locally known as the Mother City. I liked the background of the site, featuring hand-drawn images of classic Italian ingredients. However, white text over this background shows very poor contrast.
The subtle addition of top-rated awards is a great touch, as it struck me as a classy way to advertise the restaurant's expertise, and I found the layout of the home page with images and links to other pages all mixed up to be an interesting design choice.
WAVE reported less than 10 errors on the various pages, being pretty consistent in the type of errors as well, including contrast issues and some missing alternative text. The footer consistently highlights the contact details and social media links across the pages, as well as the restaurant's simple bio.
According to accessScan, the site is only semi-compliant with assistive technologies. I wondered at the addition of the "Home Foods" page, which just said "Coming soon!" with no additional information.
The background makes a strong impression on the desktop site, but it does overshine the white text, which I couldn't easily read. The site offers links to the menus for all three of the business's locations, but the Sea Point menu was much too small, with no way to enlarge it on the desktop site without using additional tools to enlarge the screen. Along with my smooth real-world tests, PageSpeed Insights awarded the desktop site's home page a respectable 79/100 for performance.
While the artistic background is not as prominent on the mobile site, the text, awards, and images shine, particularly drawing attention to the links. As on the desktop site, the Sea Point menu is much too small for clear legibility, but I could at least enlarge my screen easily. While my real-world tests showed acceptable loading times, PageSpeed Insights reported a slow speed index and awarded the mobile site's home page 61/100 for performance.
https://www.pinosvinoecucina.com.au/welcome
Alexandria, New South Wales, Australia
Pino's Vino e Cucina, named after the owner's father, creates Italian dishes from fresh produce, with the restaurant in Alexandria offering a very extensive wine list. The site opens with an "About Us" message that felt very welcoming and gave me a lot of information about the restaurant.
This is followed by a grid of images that isn't actually a gallery but contains links to the company's Instagram page, which I found confusing. There are some great images on this site, and I could easily view the food and drinks menu — although these PDF downloads are long documents with too many pages!
WAVE reported very few errors across the home page, including some missing alternative text and contrast errors. The gallery offers enticing food and drink images of high quality and the Pino shop features clear pricing.
The page is only semi-compliant with assistive technologies. The food and wine menus are only available as PDF downloads, which may lead to difficulties on mobile devices, especially as the drinks menu is 21 pages long. Contact information should be much clearer, and the booking CTAs lack enough contrast.
The desktop site's home page welcomes customers with a high-quality image of the restaurant, but the image is a bit too large to be seen in one go. I thought the "Book Now" CTA lacked a strong contrast and on the reservation policies pages, I found myself wishing for some images to break up the monotony of the long text blocks.
I also thought that the "Menu" link in the top menu was a little confusing, as it didn't link to the food menu but rather to the actual site menu. However, the overall experience of navigating through the site was good, and PageSpeed Insights awarded the desktop site's home page a performance score of 95/100.
The mobile site's home page has a handy quick links banner where visitors can contact the restaurant or find the location and operating hours. However, the hero banner on the home page should be much smaller and better optimized for the mobile screen, and the "Book Now" CTA lacks just as much contrast as on the desktop site.
The menu download is uncomfortable on mobile screens, particularly the wine menu which includes over 20 pages that can be tiresome on a mobile device. On PageSpeed Insights, the mobile site's home page scored an average rating of 51/100 for performance.
https://www.sorellatrattoria.ca/
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Sorella Trattoria serves traditional Italian dishes with a twist and aims to embody a homey feel. The site has a simple design with only two pages and an external link to the online ordering integration. While I appreciated the simplicity of the design, it would be nice to have additional content such as user reviews or an "about" page.
The large hero image entices with an image of a traditional Italian dish, over which the address and contact details appear in low contrast. Visitors can also reserve a table on the home page, and the only other page features the restaurant menu with descriptions and clear pricing.
The site offers a minimalist design which provides visitors with only the most essential information. The contact details and location are displayed in the footer, and the online ordering system is easy to use and offers visitors delivery or pick-up.
The site is only semi-compatible with assistive technologies and WAVE reported a large number of contrast issues on the home page. The site lacks any images aside from the hero and footer images and a map of the location or a link to a map. There are also a couple of spelling errors on the site.
To me, the desktop site appears elegant and neatly presented, with the pasta dish in the hero image drawing in hungry customers. The text lacks some contrast over the hero image but isn't too difficult to read, but the "menu" and "order online" tabs can be difficult to see.
My real-world tests showed some lags in the loading of the online ordering page, which was also reported by PageSpeed Insights, which gave the ordering page a low performance score of 38/100. The desktop site's home page, however, rated excellently with a performance score of 96/100.
The mobile site shows the same elegance as the desktop site, but the hero image could be better sized to fit the smaller screens, and the hamburger icon is practically invisible. Navigating to the online ordering site showed a significantly slow speed index, both in my real-world tests and on PageSpeed Insights, which awarded the ordering page a low 34/100 for performance. The mobile site's home page, however, scored a more average 64/100 for performance.
We've curated a list of five existing Italian restaurant websites together with in-depth reviews for you to browse. You can use these reviews to help you in designing your own site.
Absolutely! There are a number of website builders online that provide users with niche templates to work on. These are a great option if you have little to no design experience.
