On a mysterious wooded island on Lake Como, reachable only by boat, there is a restaurant where the same set menu has been served since 1947. It is perfect, so why change it? And at the end of the meal — of every meal served there — the proprietor performs an exorcism to rid the island of a curse dating back to the 12th century.

Brandy, coffee and fire all mix together in a strange brew of showmanship and superstition.

You reach the sunny terrace of the Locanda dell’Isola Comacina by a two-minute boat ride from Sala Comacina. Steamers and ferries drift back and forth all the time, trailing gently through the silk-grey waters. Across the lake, the villages of Torno and Varenna huddle in their fresco colours, displaying delicate deserted churches and fabulous lakefront villas.

No wonder the Romantics were enraptured by Como, with its light, its mystery, its depth — as much as 400 metres in places. Wherever did I get the notion it was bland? It is outrageously exotic, a place of mists and ghosts and incantations. And if ever the question should arise, my last meal alive will follow the 60-year-old menu served there on the island of Comacina.

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For starters, there’s the setting. The shores of the lake squeeze together right here, so the view across to the mainland is just a little smudgy and magical, without feeling out of reach. Lake Como is a place of such luscious beauty, such fine interplay of lake and mountain, sun and gloom, it is hard ever to be bored. Everywhere you look, the view composes itself into a fine painting.

First come bowls of radiant antipasto vegetables: onions baked in their jackets, sweet peppers basking in olive oil, purple beetroots, fagiole, carrots — all shimmering like a rococo still life. A bottle of Soave turns up on the table, a loaf of bread beside it — “friendly bread”, to be torn.

The waiter carves a chunk of ham of such sweetness that the pig must have been fed on honey, and then a soft pyramid of bresaola. To follow, he bones a huge salmon trout, clenches half a lemon in his hand and squeezes it all over.

Olive oil, lemon, sunshine . . . life could hardly get better. But then comes succulent chicken, and a hunk of parmesan gouged from a vast cheese and placed in my hand. And finally, with a flourish, the lake god appears — the proprietor, Benvenuto Puricelli, an Eric Sykes lookalike in a tartan waistcoat, a white shirt and a bobble hat.

He bears some astoundingly rich vanilla ice cream, served with fresh pear and banana sauce. The bobble hat, it turns out, is ceremonial wear for the exorcism.

Eccentric, theatrical, confident, this is Como at its best. I stumble off over broken stones edged with ferns to explore the island’s tiny church, pressing out the smell of wild mint from under my soles. A choir of church bells rings soft, shrill and loud by turns, and a grey heron soars up into the blue sky.

My week in Como was illuminated by many beautiful walks — across hills and parks, finding villa after villa to take the breath away. The rich have long lodged in fantasy houses around the lake — from Italian aristocrats and the great scheming cardinals of the past to Richard Branson, the Guinness dynasty and the area’s new resident mascot, George Clooney. The houses really do seem made of dreams, suspended in the morning mists, just floating over the water.

In 1568, the Cardinal of Como built the Villa d’Este in the village of Cernobbio. It is magnificent, one of the classiest hotels in the world, with its lake view and its monumental statues.

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