Octogenarian Holds Family Hostage at Tuscan Restaurant

We’re always looking for those authentic, traditional and memorable places to eat, whether they be fancy upscale restaurants, or (more often, and preferred) modest family-run places that serve traditional recipes handed down through generations.

Today was a home run: Just outside of a beautiful little Tuscan hill-town that we love to visit (despite the fact that it’s very well-known and heavily touristed), we were delighted to find this small family place. 

(Note: We will be featuring this restaurant in an upcoming installment of “Dinner and a Show” on our Patreon platform.) 

An adage in the US suggests that if a restaurant is nearly empty, it must not be any good. We’ve seen again and again in Italy that this is not a reliable metric. Even though we were the only customers eating lunch today (we had called ahead for a reservation), the food was excellent. “We eat what you eat,” our host explained; “and of course we only want to eat well." 

We were drawn to the place initially after research suggested that this was a place highly-regarded by locals - a rarity in a tourist hot-spot. We were further enticed by their menu, which offered a small list of house-made pastas, any of which could be combined with one of several sauces (like cacio e pepe, or ragù). This is a menu scheme that we typically find only in a few small, family-run places.

We started with two dishes that were unusual to us - a zuppa pientina, made with beans from Lago di Trasimeno (itself a specific food-culture zone) and local cheese; and a pici (hand-rolled pasta) “Nonna Graziella” - made, naturally, from a recipe of the family matriarch. (More on this recipe later; it’s the subject of the joke behind the title of this article.) 

We had never seen these particular dishes on a menu in this region before, but they were obviously house specialties, so of course we ordered them. We were also surprised to see scottiglia on the menu. This is a stew of mixed meats, slow-cooked with local herbs, that we had heretofore only seen in one restaurant in the Casentino, in the far northeast of Tuscany. Our host today explained that they only offer it when they are able to get the right ingredients - in particular, a sufficient supply of rabbit from a local hunter.

This led to a discussion of the sourcing of all of their foodstuffs: They get everything from local producers - the rabbits from this cacciatore; the flour for their pasta from a mulino (mill) down the road, the pork and cheese and eggs and vegetables from this or that individual small producer. 

This is the idea behind the restaurants connected to the “Slow Food Presidio” in Italy. Menus from such restaurants list the source of nearly every ingredient of every dish on their menu. It’s worth noting that the restaurants that list their sources so meticulously often have quite high prices; not so in this place, where the prices seemed normal - perhaps even too low.

This restaurant doesn't bother to list their suppliers: “It’s just normal here,” our host explained. 

The local residents know that it’s normal, too; and they are predominantly the folks that eat here. Since it’s outside of the little town’s medieval walls, the place sees little tourist traffic, even though it’s only a 5-10 minute walk away. This is another of the hallmarks of a great place for us to go - a restaurant with few tourists, frequented and respected by locals.

As we finished the last of our vino, the mom came out of the kitchen to chat with us and her daughter. We talked about how some Americans come to do cooking classes (another thing the place offers, for an unreasonably low price) and want to learn how to make spaghetti and meatballs. This is a dish that you we have seen on a menu a total of one time in almost 20 years of travel; Italians know it primarily, our hosts explained, from the movie “Lili e il Vagabondo.” (It took us a minute to realize that this was the Italian name for the animated film “Lady and the Tramp.”) 

They told us all about the restaurant and their food-sourcing habits; their experience during the pandemic lockdowns; and the Nonna who gave her name to the pasta dish we enjoyed today. Though the grandma - now 84 years old - no longer works regularly in the kitchen, she still makes the dough herself for this special pasta. And she still refuses to divulge the specifics of the recipe even to her family, in order to have something special and unique to contribute to the kitchen operation. “Maybe someday she’ll tell us,” the mom explained. “But until then…” Her hand gesture and a little eye-rolling smile finished the thought.

Thus the title of this article, describing one of these rare finds - an excellent, authentic place on the verge of a bustling tourist location. The old traditions linger - but don’t try to grab them from Nonna’s hands too soon, kids.

(Note: We will be featuring this restaurant in an upcoming installment of “Dinner and a Show” on our Patreon platform, and of course we’ll recommend it to our itinerary clients.

This is just one excellent restaurant among dozens that we’ve discovered over the years. You can find such places by sniffing out a few simple aspects while traveling:
- Search for places where workers and other locals are eating
- Look for items on menus that are indicated as family recipes
- Venture away from the bustling center of a touristy location
- Read local message boards in advance to see where they go for ottimo cibo autentico