Tag Archives: eating-italy

Eating Tuscany – Villa Dinner

Location: Staggia, Italy

Date: June 15 & 18, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

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Twice in the villa we arranged a “simple” dinner of local bounty. All the stuff below was purchased at either the local market in Staggia or at various local gourmet shops. Almost everything below was prepared by “D” who volunteered her excellent cooking and preparatory skills, along with her skill at attractive plating given few resources. My mom served as sous chef.


On the right is a cheap but pleasant prosecco.

In the middle the incredibly available and decent Nipozzano rufina (10 euros locally!) which parker gives a 91+, “The 2007 Chianti Rufina Riserva Vigneto Montesodi is a decidedly brooding red for this part of Tuscany. Smoke, grilled herbs and dark cherries meld into a palate of intense, richly concentrated fruit as this dense, powerful wine opens up in the glass. This is one of the few 2007 Tuscan reds that definitely needs bottle age. Today the tannins are rather imposing, particularly within the context of the vintage, but they should soften over the next few years. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2022.”

On the left is the 2007 Capannelle Chianti Classico Riserva which we bought at the vineyard, also earning 91 points. “Juicy red cherries, flowers, spices, leather and new oak are some of the notes that emerge from Capannelle’s flashy 2007 Chianti Classico Riserva. Soft and luxurious on the palate, the Riserva impresses for its superb balance and long, harmonious finish. The open, seductive personality of the vintage is on full display. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2019. “


Sauteed mushrooms with coriander.


Big red chunked tuna bruchetta with arugala.


Marinated anchovies.


Local eggs. Notice the bright yellow yolks, different than our eggs.


Local melon and prosciutto di Toscana.

Tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic.


And it’s soul mate, fresh mozzerella di buffalo.


Large Tuscan green olives — in no short supply here!


Homemade ratatouille, courtesy of “D.”


Bread.


The remnants of some of our cheeses.


And some slightly fresher ones. Most of the local cheeses are peccorinos (sheep cheeses) of various ages.


Boar and brunello salami.


Simple pasta for the kids.


Salad.

Asparagus.


Local fruit.

Cherries are in season.


And watermelon.


Here is the spread on June 15.


And again on June 18.

It’s a rare spot in the US where the local bounty makes for such an excellent meal! In typical fashion high quality ingredients and products are available nearly everywhere. Even the Autogrill rest stops on the Autostrada (super highways) have 50 types of cheeses and cured meats for sale!

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Eating Volterra – Pizzeria Il Rifugio

Restaurant: Pizzeria Il Rifugio

Location: Volterra, Italy

Date: June 15, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan + Pizza

Rating: Solid Pizza

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I highly recommend the medium sized town of Volterra. Besides the negative of being the home town of one of fiction’s most ridiculous gangs of vampires (Twilight’s Volturi) it’s a really cool place.


Anyway, we settled in for lunch at this pizzeria behind the mini dump truck. It’s not far from the Museum of Torture, a creepy institution well worth a visit.


The endless menu.


Bread as usual.


A pretty spectacular minestrone soup. Those canned American ones we are used to are just pathetic.


Needs no explanation.


Pizza Margarita.


Pizza al Funghi (with mushrooms).


And my personal favorite, with sausage and gorgonzola. This wasn’t overdone, there isn’t a ton of blue cheese on here, but it was a very good pizza. The sausage was that slightly sweet kind with fennel. Yum.

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Eating Monteriggioni – Il Pozzo

Restaurant: Il Pozzo

Location: Monteriggioni, Italy

Date: June 13 & 22, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Classic Tuscan

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This local resteraunt in the cute little walled town of Monteriggioni pretty much typifies Tuscan cooking at its traditional best. We initially went here on the basis of our villa owner’s recommendation. He has good taste, and we came back a second time. This is probably the best of all my reports to get a sense of the classic Tuscan courses.


The restaurant is located in the main square of this qaint medeval village.


The name seems to mean well, shaft, or pit. There is an old well in the square right outside the restaurant, so that’s probably it.


The menu.


The interior is cute and traditional.


And they also have this lovely side patio.


The usual bread.


We started with a white from San Gimignano, Vernaccia, an old school but very pleasant DOC white.


Beetle juice anyone? Compari and soda.


Incredibly common, Tuscan ham with local melon.


Classic, caprese.


Smoked salmon served with a bit of salad and butter.


Local “pici” pasta with basil, garlic, pine nuts, parmesan and olive oil.


Spaghetti pomodoro.


Pappardelle al Cinghiale, boar ragu. This was a scrumptious rendition of this wonderful dish, with perhaps a little cinnamon or nutmeg in the ragu.


Pasta with butter and cheese for the under 10 set.


Polenta with porcini mushrooms and cheese fondue — a rare out of focus photo.


A fantastic meat risotto. Basically a Bolognese sauce with rice. Really good.


The basic salad, but very well done.


Zucchini and walnut salad.


Fried fresh zucchini blossoms. Unlike in the states, these had no ricotta inside (which does frankly improve them), but they were still really good.


A good local Chianti Classico Riserva. It’s hard to really go wrong with some of these riservas at the local prices.


Grilled fillet of Tuscan cow. Rare (always)!


Guinea fowl braised and served in a sauce with slices of fresh truffle. No hating this.


Pork Senese, in a sweetish Vin Santo and fennel sauce. I liked this sauce which complemented the pork perfectly.


A total Tuscan classic, Salsicce con Fagioli — franks and beans. Tuscan sausage with stewed fava beans (a favorite of Hannibal Lector, but he uses the other other white meat).


Grilled lamb chops. Tuscans do love their Griglia (grilled meats).


Plenty of aperitifs available to wash down those slices of animal flesh.


The dessert menu.


Vanilla Gelato with hardened chocolate shell.


Creme Caramel. One of my personal favorites.


Tiramisu.


Cheese cake, Tuscan style.

You can really see the rhythm of a Tuscan meal here. The only things missing are the bruschetta and the minestrone, but those are shown in lots of other reports like Trattoria Pepei. First with have the antipasta, in this case cured meats, fish, etc. Then the pastas, then salads and vegetables accompanying grilled meats, followed by the cake-like desserts.

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Eating Gaiole – Lo Sfizio di Bianchi

Restaurant: Lo Sfizio di Bianchi

Location: Gaiole in Chianti, Italy

Date: June 14, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Surprisingly good for a random pick

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My father and I went on a Chianti Classico wine tasting quest, and this brought us to Gaiole, which is deep in the heart of Chianti’s best wine growing area. This is one of those “one road” towns where the road is just striped by buildings. We wandered into a store for something and the clerk sent us to this restaurant located in the town square.


The name seems to mean “the whimsy of white”.

The usual longish menu.


This was a very nice caprese in a country of really nice capreses. Note the really red tomatoes, the arugala, the dusted basil, and the generous blobs of mozzarella. Even I, consumate raw tomato hater, ate some of the beasts.


A cheese and spinach ravioli much like the one we had on day 2, just with an even cheesier richer sauce.


This is meat tortellini baked with cheese and béchamel sauce. It was REALLY good.


Someone else’s giant beef steak!


And expresso to finish.

This was a quick little lunch, bunch the dishes were very good for what they were. No complaints whatsoever.

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Eating Castellina – Albergaccio di Castellina

Restaurant: Ristorante Albergaccio di Castellina

Location: Castellina in Chianti, Italy

Date: June 13 & 20, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Great food, great service

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Albergaccio di Castellina is the first “fancy” place we went to in Tuscany, and it was so good we went back twice, but like any of the repeat restaurants in the Eating Italy set I have compiled both into a single post. The place earns a single Michelin star and is located in the beautiful hills of Chianti Classico, in a town called Castellina in Chianti. The first time we arrived we had a typical “finding mishap” due to a clash between the GPS and a recent road closure. This led us to circle the area for about 45 minutes until we discovered the mysterious new (and roundabout) way to approach the restaurant.


The have lovely plates! And, as our gluten free companion observed, she’s “alergic to the plate!” (but obviously this doesn’t matter through the plastic).


They had both a lovely patio.

And a classic looking Tuscan interior.


I’m going to take to calling this course the “pre-bread” as many places in Italy have two, or even three, different rounds of bread! Those long things were like salty donuts! Yum!


The extensive menu. AC (as I’ll call it) has two very reasonable tasting menus and an unusual but easy method of pricing merely by the number of courses.


We started with a little prosecco.

Then this lighter Chianti Classico, very local.

This amuse was a tiny version of the best minestrone I ever had. It tasted like bacon! (and it had bacon).


On another night we got the Tuscan bread and tomato soup.


The second bread course.


And they even had gluten free bread — without pre-warning — earning them big points.


Mixed local cured meats, always great in Italy.


This was the best Beef Tartar I’ve had, except possibly for at Totoraku. It was Chianino, the tough but delicious Tuscan cow. It also had ginger and parmesan. Wow!


Flowers of tuscany. Some tartar, an onion stuffed with pecorino, a meat pate, and a fried squash blossom.


Moving slightly up the Chianti beefiness ladder.


Hand made ravioli filled with blue cheese of Chianti, with thyme leaf and celery soup.


Gnocchi with saffron and beef muzzle sauce, parmesan.


And even gluten free pasta!


A fantastic baked lasagne.

Swiss shard “meat” balls, with tomato, basil, and cheese. Really interesting (and good).


More homemade pasta, with a tripe and parmesan sauce, with porcini mushrooms. This was delicious, and I don’t even like tripe!


This local super Tuscan gets a 96 from Parker!  “The 2007 Cepparello (Sangiovese) makes a case for itself as one of the finest wines ever made at Isole e Olena.  It is an open, sublime Cepparello endowed with tons of clarity and definition. The ripe red fruit floats on a core of refined, silky tannins that caress the palate with exceptional elegance and finesse. As the wine sits in the glass its inner perfume gradually emerges, leading to an eternal, beautifully crafted finish. The ripeness of the vintage is beautifully balanced by the acidity that is the trademark of Sangiovese grown in these hillside plots. Simply put, this is an utterly thrilling wine that will be a joy to follow over the coming years. In many ways, the restraint, elegance and polish all suggest Cepparello is the Haut-Brion of Tuscany’s high-end, pure Sangioveses. The 2007 Cepparello was fermented in wood uprights and saw three weeks of contact on the skins. Malolactic fermentation took place in equal parts steel and French oak. The final blend was assembled and the wine was subsequently aged in French oak barrels (1/3 new) for 18 months. Proprietor Paolo De Marchi describes the 2007 season as one where periods of heat alternated with well-timed spells of rain. Overall temperatures remained warm (but never extreme) throughout the year, which allowed the fruit to ripen evenly. Still, it was a challenging vintage, and De Marchi was forced to carry out a stringent selection in his vineyards. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2027.”


Grilled Tuscan vegetables and burrata.

Lamb medallions in an anchovy sauce with herbs. Stewed giblets. Tomato and vegetable millefeuile. The meat was a little tougher than we are usually used to in the states, but full of flavor.


Giblets!

This dish was the single failure. Chick pea crepes with salt cod. This is a traditional salt-packed Italian fish that needs a lot of soaking — and it had 48 hours — but it still wasn’t really to our taste. They very generously pulled it from the bill.


Bisteca Toscana! The giant slab of nearly raw grilled Chianino beef.


Local cheeses!


The dessert menu.

A pre-dessert of cherry gelato and cherries. Yum!


Another pre-dessert, ricotta and fig.

Local cheesecake with fresh berries.

Two slightly different takes on ricotta cheese semifreddo in a sponge cake, flavored with vin santo.


Summer “caprese” of cream and strawberries.


Housemade gelato.

This place is really awesome. They take local ingredients, and local dishes, and do a wonderful job modernizing them.

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Eating Colle di Val d’Elsa – Dietro Le Quinte

Restaurant: Dietro Le Quinte

Location: Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy

Date: June 13, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Good food, but a little more $$ than some

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We wandered into the town of Colle di Val d’Elsa having no idea that there are actually two towns: the newer one below and the quaint medeval one above. Eventually we found the elevator up to the top of the hill and the old town, and in need of repast (lunch) settled on this place.


They have an outside street patio.


Seen better here.

But they also have this lovely back terrace (down yet another glass elevator).

With its lovely hillside view.


The menu is another one of these gigantic Italian multi pagers.


Bread.

A slight variant on the Tuscan typical tomato bruschetta in that it has cheese too.


Pie with vegetable, mascarpone and taleggio sauce.


Risotto with squids and drops of gorgonzola.

An interesting local shell shaped pasta in pomodoro sauce.


Tagliatelle pomodoro.

A carbonara type Tagliatelle with pancetta, greens, cream, and cheese.


An endive salad.

This place had a fantastic patio and very tasty food. It was a little more expensive — and the portions smaller — than many other places we have been frequenting, as they apparently need to offset the cost of their luxurious buildout 🙂 The cuisine was just ever-so-slightly modernized from the totally traditional Tuscan.

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Eating Tuscany – Boar at Home

Location: Tuscany, Italy

Date: June 12, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

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During our day in Siena we picked up a few supplies.

Most notably, at the sign of the Cinghiale, the Tuscan wild boar.


This funny little gourmet shop sells all sorts of big products — plus some cheese and wine.


The don’t allow photos, but I stole this one of the inside. Zoome in and check out the salesman and his mustache!


Back at our temporary “home” we opened this old Barbaresco. One of my brother’s friends in Milano had given it to him thinking it wouldn’t be good anymore — being almost 40 years old — but lo and beyond it was delicious.


We did have to decant it to seperate out the sediment, but I managed to extract the cork (in 2 pieces) without loosing any.


At the boar shop we picked up two kinds of pecorino, this fresher one.


And this aged “good with old wine” one.

We also got some of this boar salami, pure wild pig mixed with Brunello!


And this “Panna Rustico” which is hearty bread with pecorino and pancetta baked into it. What more could you want with a nice old Italian wine but variants of pig and cheese?

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Eating Siena – Trattoria Pepei

Restaurant: Trattoria Pepei

Location: Siena, Italy

Date: June 12 & 19, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Delicious & Fun!

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Our first full day in tuscany and we went into Siena. We selected a restaurant the night before using Michelin, picking a centrally located one that earned a bib gourmet.


Trattoria Papei which is located in the piazza Mercato right behind the Campos.


They have an extensive terrace area under a network of awnings and umbrellas.


The menu.


We ordered this local, inexpensive, and very pleasant chianti classico reserva. Parker gives it 90 points. “The 2007 Chianti Classico Riserva Il Grigio (Sangiovese) comes across as soft and pliant, very much in the style of the vintage. A warm, open bouquet leads to succulent ripe cherries, flowers and spices, all of which flow through nicely to the enveloping finish. Today the juiciness of the fruit makes Il Grigio very attractive, but readers who prefer more tertiary complexity will want to wait for a few years. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2017. “


A typical (you’ll here this word a lot here) Tuscan anti-pasta: mixed bruschetta. Here are tomato and marinated mushrooms, both delicious.


Melon with Prosciutto di Toscana.

More cured meats and bruschetta. The brown mud like stuff is chicken liver. The round salami is Finnochiona, a typical (again) local salami with a bit of fennel and pepper inside.


A truly excellent Zuppe Minestrone. The vegetables maintained their shape, but were cooked wuch that they melt in the mouth.


Tuscan bread and vegetable (mostly tomato) soup.


The kitchen is run my mama, literally.


Spaghetti pomodoro.


Pappardelle al Ragu Di Cinghiale! Wild boar strikes again.


Tagliatelle with ragu Toscana (mixed meat ragu probably).


Tagliatelle with duck ragu. This was deep and meaty. There must have been some duck liver in the sauce too.


Penne pomodoro.

Cheese ravioli with marinated mushroom sauce.


Pici (homemade local pasta) with cheese and pepper. This is a very simple dish, but when done right, as it was here, it’s amazing! The bright black papper flavor stands out. They have this now at Sotto, a new rustic Italian in LA.


Gnocchi pomodoro. The gnocchi here were soft and delicious, although not quite as good as the ones the first night in Modena.


Gnocchi with butter and sage.


Mixed salad (again).

Another salad, arugala or rocket with tomatos.


Pounded veal in lemon sauce. I’m not a big veal fan but this was good.


BBQ Ribs, Tuscan style. These were not unlike spare ribs at a chinese restaurant. They were a bit chewier than I was used too as the flavorful Tuscan pigs are leaner and free range, and the Italians don’t nuke the meat.


Delicious potatoes in a tomato sauce.

Pounded veal in a mushroom sauce — also excellent.


Chicken Cacciatore.


And at the end some free grappa. Ouch! taste-buds still stinging.


Cafe expresso.

This is a fun and delicious place. It’s located in the lovely square above. They may cater to tourists, but they serve amazing traditional Tuscan food prepared with very fresh ingredients. And the service is extremely friendly.

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Eating Staggia – Pozzo dei Desideri

Restaurant: Pozzo dei Desideri

Location: Bologna, Italy

Date: June 11, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Good food, good value

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Today we drove through the mountains between Forli in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, then down past Florence to Staggia a small town near Siena. As this was a transitional day and we were settling into our new (temporary) home we just popped down into town for a quick local dinner.


This joint is in the center of this one horse town.


It has a big menu of typical Tuscan fare and very reasonable prices.


This being the heart of Chianti we chose a local Chianti Classico. This was probably about an 89 point wine, but it had some decent age on it making it fairly nice.


It was old enough that they decanted it.


In this modern age, the old adage, “don’t order seafood in the country,” no longer applies. This was billed as Zuppe di Mare. There wasn’t a lot of “soup” but it was tasty with a hearty garlic tomato sauce and various and mysterious shellfish.


Torte of Zucchini in a Pecorino sauce.


One of the MOST typical of pasta dishes, Pappardelle Cinghiale (wild boar ragu) with olives. The Cinghiale is the local hairy wild boar of tuscany. Click here for some pictures of this delightful creature.


This is a big wide fresh pasta with pomodoro and pecorino.


Gnocci with pecorino, tomato, and arugula.


The omnipresent insalata misto.


And another Tuscan classic, the block of beef. This is a fillet in balsamic sauce.


Notice how it’s served rare. Really rare. Tuscans don’t believe in cooking their beef. It was tasty though. Leaner and a bit tougher than an American filet, but full of flavor.

Overall the place was very good for just being a casual inexpensive local spot. We did however run an odd service quirk when they brought out a second steak a full hour after everyone else got their food (they had forgotten the order). Unlike in America they didn’t want to pull it from the bill (although it was only about 10 euro) and instead insisted on boxing it up for us.


Then we walked across the street for gelato. The place was humming at 11pm, packed with kids.


The didn’t have a lot of flavors, but they are all artisanal and very good.


Some various gelato cakes too.

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Eating Milano Marittima – Al Caminetto

Restaurant: Al Caminetto

Location: Cervia / Milano Marittima, Italy

Date: June 10, 2011

Cuisine: Adriatic Seafood

Rating: Great service, great food

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For our anniversary my wife, me, and our family went out to what the locals described as “the best restaurant in town.”


This is a large, lovely, and lively joint — packed to the brim with large parties. We must have observed at least half a dozen birthdays or other assorted celebrations.

The poured us all glasses of prosecco right out of the gate.

And brought some pre-bread, basically pizza dough.

Then tehy came around with these steamed clams and chickpeas.

Seen here closer up. We thought these were all freebees, but they did turn up on the bill!

Just a bit of menu!


We started with this Gavi white. Not bad, but not really my favorite Italian white of the trip.


Various butters.


Pickled onions.

Raw food, eaten on toast with the onions. Yum.

Salted peel and eat shrimp, like at a chinese restaurant.


Fritto Misto!


One portion.

Insalta Misto. You will continue to see a lot of these.

This wine i really liked. Soave is a very nice white.


Some mongo crabs in the tank, about twenty inches across each.


Penne gorgonzola.

Linguine with salmon and cream.


Mixed grill! I don’t know what the flat purple backed creatures are, and while they tasted fine, they sure had a lot of legs.


Grilled veggies.

Spaghetti del mare.


A single portion.


Close up.


The wave of desserts begins with limon sorbet mixed with prosecco.


Mixed cookies.

Some moscato. Two dessert drinks!


An anniversary tiramisu with sparkler.

A slice of that. Tasty, full of cream.

Then they bring by the dessert cart.


And I can’t resist a slice of cassata. I never get cassata, and while this is only the mainland Italian type, and not my all time favorite cassata di Sicilianna, it was still good.


A profiterole, drowned.

Then some “bonus” (again on the bill) fruit. Pretty spectacular.


I wander to find they have a pizza oven. What doesn’t this place have?

Ladies even get a parting gift of merengues. This place was pretty darn fun. Everything tasted wonderful too. The only downside was the bill, but hey you only have your 10th anniversary once (well at least you SHOULD only have it once).

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