Tag Archives: Toscana (wine)

Eating Montalcino – Le Potazzine

Restaurant: Ristorante Le Potazzine

Location: Montalcino, Italy

Date: June 20, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Tasty traditional

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We took a most excellent wine tasting tour of Montalcino (the home of the one and only Brunello). This was led by a top flight young guide named Matteo Perinti, who took us to a pair of top flight small wineries (but more on that itself later). In between we stopped at Montalcino the home base for Brunello.


Montalcino is one of Tuscany‘s long list of ugly locales — just kidding. It’s a gorgeous mediaeval village — with a LOT of wine for sale.


We went to the restaurant owned by the Le Potoazzine vineyard, which was one that we visited. Not only was their wine incredible, but they run a nice restaurant.


For lunch we actually had their IGT Tuscan, slightly down the curve than this amazing Rosso Di Montalcino, but I didn’t get a photo. If you can find the above wine in the states do — it was incredibly seductive.


Tuscan Prosciutto.


And a wider selection of local cured meats.


Panzenella, the very traditional “salad” of stale bread crumbs, onions, tomatos, and fresh olive oil.


Bruschetta with tomato, basil, and olive oil. Tuscan’s have no fear of serving bread too many ways.


Minestrone soup.


Gnocchi done the simple way, with cream, butter, and cheese.


Risotto Brunello. Very fitting, and very tasty.


Local wide pasta fresca with vegetables.

This was a nice little lunch place. Certainly nothing radical about the cooking but every dish was delicious.

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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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