Aperitivo: apéritif usually enjoyed as an appetizer before a large meal.
Alcoholic/non-alcoholic drinks such as wine, prosecco, champagne or spumante. Food such as olives, crisps, nuts, cheese, sauce dips, little quiches or similar snacks.
Antipasto: literally "before (the) meal", hot or cold appetizers.
Salumi (such as salame, mortadella, prosciutto, bresaola and other charcuterie products), cheeses, sandwich-like foods (panino, bruschetta, tramezzino, crostino), vegetables, cold salmon or prawn cocktails.
Primo: "first course", usually consists of a hot dish.
Risotto, pasta, soup and broth, gnocchi, polenta, crespelle, casseroles, or lasagne.
Secondo : "second course", the main dish, usually fish or meat.
Turkey, sausage, pork, steak, stew, beef, zampone, salt cod, stockfish, salmon, lobster, lamb, chicken, or a roast.
Contorno: "side dish", may be a salad or cooked vegetables. A traditional menu features salad along with the main course.
Commonly served alongside a secondo, usually consist of vegetables, raw or cooked, hot or cold.
Insalata: salad
If the contorni contained many leafy vegetables, the salad might be omitted. Otherwise, a fresh garden salad would be served at this point.
Formaggio e frutta: cheese and fruits
The first dessert. Local cheeses may be part of the antipasto or contorno as well.
Dolce: "sweet", such as cakes and cookies.
Tiramisu, zuppa inglese, panna cotta, cake or pie, panettone or pandoro (the last two are mainly served at Christmas time) and the Colomba Pasquale (an Easter cake). Gelato or a sorbetto. In Naples, zeppole and rum baba are popular; in Sicily, cassata and cannoli are commonly consumed; mostarda, on the other hand, is more of a Northern dish.
Caffè: coffee.
Italians, unlike many countries, do not have milky coffees or drinks after meals (such as cappucino or caffè macchiato), but strong coffee such as espresso, which is often drunk very quickly in small cups at very high temperatures.
Digestivo: "digestives", liquors/liqueurs.
Also called ammazzacaffè, if served after the coffee, is the drink to conclude the meal. Drinks such as grappa, amaro, limoncello or other fruit/herbal drinks are drunk. Digestivo indicates that the drinks served at this time are meant to ease digestion of a long meal.