The cuisines of Tuscany and Umbria are highly revered throughout food-focused Italy. In general, the cuisine is rustic and simple, relying heavily upon fresh vegetables, legumes (pulses), meat and game. The only elaborate sauces you are likely to encounter will be on pasta – meats are usually just seasoned and served grilled or roasted. Olive oil and wine also play key roles in the Mediterranean diet.
Where to Eat
Italy has three traditional types of place to eat: a trattoria, a ristorante or an osteria. At first they may appear to be similar, and this is increasingly true, but to Italians they signify different types of dining experiences. A trattoria is more casual, serving basic regional dishes in an informal setting. Trattorie are often family-owned and have no frills. A ristorante implies somewhat fancier décor, more formal service, and more elaborate and expensive food. To make things more confusing, the osteria is historically a tavern-like wine shop where you can buy a glass of wine and perhaps a hunk of cheese, but the word is now used almost interchangeably with ristorante or trattoria.
Yet another type of eating establishment is the tavola calda or rosticceria, both of which are cafeteria-style places where several selections of hot dishes are prepared daily and served from a counter. You generally pay in advance and show the receipt to someone working behind the counter, who prepares a plate for you.
Although pizza has become a national dish, it is not one for which these regions are particularly famous. Eating in a pizzeria costs considerably less than in a ristorante or trattoria, and they generally serve only pizza and appetisers.
In general, a ristorante or trattoria serves both lunch and dinner. Lunch is generally from 12.30 to 3pm, and dinner from 7.30 to 11pm. Most establishments close one day a week and occasionally for lunch or dinner immediately preceding or following that day. Most Italian eating establishments have the good sense to close for holidays (ferie) once or even twice a year. Some restaurants close for at least two weeks around 15 August and sometimes another week or two in the winter.
What to Eat
You will notice that just about all menus are divided into more or less the same categories (to an Italian, these are the essential elements of a decent meal): antipasti (appetisers), primi (first courses), secondi (second courses), contorni (side dishes) and dolci (desserts).
Caffès are a good place for a light snack
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Italians take eating seriously. The whole dining experience is to be enjoyed, and restaurateurs expect their non-Italian patrons to approach it in the same way, so never try getting away with ordering only an antipasto. Ordering just a pasta dish or a secondo and contorno is acceptable, especially at lunch.
Antipasto means ‘before the meal’, and these selections are usually served in small portions. Many restaurants offer an antipasto misto (mixed appetiser) that is often served buffet-style from a table laden with such dishes as melone con prosciutto (ham and melon) or grilled vegetables, and insalata caprese (mozzarella, tomatoes and fresh basil).
Typical Tuscan antipasti: crostini, tomatoes or liver pâté on toasted bread; prosciutto di cinghiale, ham from wild boar; finocchiona, pork sausage laced with fennel.
Typical Umbrian antipasti: bruschetta, toasted bread topped with garlic and olive oil, sometimes with chopped tomatoes as well; prosciutto di Norcia, ham from the town of Norcia, Umbria’s foremost producer of pork; schiacciata, a flat bread sometimes topped with onions and other vegetables.
Il primo is the first course, and in Tuscany and Umbria that generally means hearty soup or pasta (increasingly you will also find risotto).
Typical Tuscan primi: acquacotta, onion soup that is a speciality of Arezzo; minestrone alla fiorentina, a vegetable soup with beans; panzanella, a bread salad often found on summer menus, whose ingredients also include tomatoes and basil; pappardelle con lepre or con cinghiale, broad noodles topped with a rich sauce made from hare or wild boar; ribollita, a rich vegetable soup with bread mixed into it, usually served in winter and often made from leftover vegetables, hence the name, which means ‘reboiled’; cacciuco, a rich fish soup that is reason in itself to travel to Livorno.
Food festivals
Sagras are food festivals held throughout the year, usually in small country towns. Local people join together to cook dishes that feature a star ingredient (artichokes, chestnuts, wild boar, truffles, etc) in a casual and lively setting. Lists of events are available at www.festivalsinitaly.com.
Typical Umbrian primi: minestra di farro, a vegetable soup; tagliatelle con funghi porcini, thick noodles with wild mushrooms; pici, a fat, short spaghetti usually served with tomato sauce; baggiana, a soup of fava beans and tomatoes.
Il secondo is the main dish of meat or fish, usually meat in Tuscany and Umbria, and often beefsteak, pork, rabbit or game birds in both regions. Some typical dishes of both regions are porchetta, roast suckling pig, often sold from stalls at markets or on roadsides; cinghiale, wild boar, usually roasted or made into sausages called salciccia; fritto misto, a mixed grill including lamb chops and sweetbreads, among other meats; anatra, duck; and girarrosto, a spit of roast game birds.
Italian staples: bread and wine
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Typical Tuscan secondi: trippa alla fiorentina, tripe with tomato sauce; baccala alla livornese, salt cod, a speciality of Livorno; and bistecca alla fiorentina, a T-bone steak grilled rare, Florence’s claim to culinary fame.
Typical Umbrian secondi: frittata di tartufi, an omelette made with truffles; regina in porchetta, carp from Lago di Trasimeno, covered with herbs and baked in an oven.
Il contorno is the vegetable course. It’s always ordered separately, as vegetables and salad are never included with a secondo. Usually only a few items are offered, but they tend to be fresh from the market. Fagioli, beans – especially white beans – are a favourite. Salads (insalate) are straightforward and tend to come in two varieties: insalata verde, a simple green salad, or insalata mista, green leaves with mixed vegetables.
Ice cream, always a favourite
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Il dolce is dessert, a course that is not among Italy’s greatest culinary achievements, but ice cream (gelato) is reliably delicious when it is home-made, and biscotti are sweet biscuits, often almond flavoured, that are dipped in vinsanto, a sweet wine. Most restaurants offer tiramisù, a dessert made with sponge biscuits dipped in coffee and mascarpone cream. Many towns have their own sweet specialities that show up on menus and in shops.
Typical Tuscan dolci: cantucci, small versions of biscotti, a delicious speciality of Prato; panforte, a Sienese cake made with nuts and candied fruit.
Typical Umbrian dolci: gelato ai Baci, creamy ice cream with Perugia’s famous Perugina chocolates folded into it; roccoiata, a cake with a rich filling of walnuts, almonds, raisins and honey, is a speciality of Assisi.
Gelaterie
Most towns are blessed with at least one gelateria, a shop that sells only ice cream and sorbetto, which is a refreshing and less fattening alternative, made with ice often mixed with fresh fruit. A gelateria worth seeking out in Florence is the world-famous Vivoli on Via Isole di Stinche near Santa Croce.
Bars, Caffès and Gelaterie
In Italy, bars are not solely dedicated to alcoholic beverages. They usually serve wine and spirits as well as soft drinks, mineral water and, especially, enormous quantities of coffee. Incidentally, Italians consider a cappuccino to be a morning drink and would not dream of ordering one after dinner, but espresso can be drunk at any time of day. Drinks are accompanied in the morning by croissant-like pastries (cornetti or brioche, often filled with jam, custard or chocolate) and throughout the day by little snacks or sandwiches (panini).
Italy is a nation of coffee drinkers
Steve McDonald/Apa Publications
You do not usually pay the people serving behind the counter. Instead, you decide what you want, go to the cash desk (la cassa) and pay in advance; the cashier will give you a receipt that you present to the bar staff when you order. Bars keep long hours, usually opening around 7.30 or 8am to serve breakfast, and remaining open until around 8 or 8.30pm, after serving the pre-dinner aperitif.
A caffè is usually an elegant or trendy establishment that Americans or the British might call a tearoom. Many towns have at least one august caffè; there are two in Florence on the Piazza della Repubblica: Caffè Gilli and Caffè Paszkowski. A caffè usually serves pastries and gelato and sometimes light meals, accompanied by coffee, tea or a glass of wine.
Beverages
Italian beer is extremely palatable; ask for a birra nazionale and you will probably be served a bottle of Peroni. Many imported brands are also available. Draught beer (birra alla spina) is often imported and quite a bit more expensive.
Tap water is generally drinkable throughout Tuscany and Umbria, and in many rural settings comes fresh from wells. Even so, most Italians prefer to drink mineral water (acqua minerale). In restaurants you will be offered acqua frizzante, con gas or gassata, all of which mean mineral water ‘with gas’, which English speakers know better as ‘sparkling water’; or acqua naturale or non gassata, still mineral water.
Refreshing alternatives include spremuta, freshly squeezed orange or lemon juice, to which you can add sugar and water to taste. Granite are wonderful concoctions of crushed ice to which fresh fruit juice or other flavourings are added; a caffè granita is a glass of coffee-permeated ice topped with whipped cream. This summery treat is available in most gelaterie and some bars. Among hot drinks, coffee is by far the most popular choice, but tea (tè) is widely available, served with milk (con latte) or lemon (con limone) or even cold (freddo) in summer.
Wine
Wine has, for hundreds of years, played an important role in Tuscan life. The world-famous Chianti wine denomination dates back to 1716 when Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici III himself designated the specific area that was allowed to call its wine Chianti. The wine gained popularity when Baron Ricasoli, a wealthy landowner and part-time politician, began to experiment with its composition and entered his new Sangiovese, Canaiolo and Malvasia grape combination in the Paris wine exhibition of 1878.
Rating the Wines
Italian wines are classified with four ratings. DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata Garantita) indicates that a wine is from an established wine-producing region and maintains very high standards of quality. DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) ensures that a wine is from an established area and meets the standards of that area; it is guaranteed to be a quality wine, but of a lesser quality than a DOCG one. IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) was created in the 1990s in response to the modern practice of producing quality wines that deviate from the traditional production rules. Vino da tavola (VDT), the fourth classification, more or less denotes a good table wine from a reputable producer.
These days, the area, which has had its geographical boundaries carefully specified, is completely covered with vineyards. Wine producers must follow a series of regulations before their wine can gain the Chianti denomination and bear the black cockerel logo.
Tuscan wines enjoy a worldwide reputation
Steve McDonald/Apa Publications
Chianti may be Tuscany’s most famous wine, but Brunello, from vineyards around Montalcino, is widely considered its best. Deep, ruby red and robust, it must be played off against the strong taste of steak or game. The region’s third contender is Montepulciano, a lovely, fruity, easy-on-the-palate red from the town of the same name.
Tuscany’s best white wine is Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Recently, Tuscan producers have been experimenting with foreign grapes like merlot and cabernet sauvignon, and produced some delicious wines. If you can afford to splash out, try the Sassicaia, Cepparello or Ornellaia.
Though less famous than Tuscan wines, the Umbrian varieties can hold their own. The best are the delicate whites from Orvieto, notably the dry Orvieto Classico. Those from Montefalco, especially Sagrantino di Montefalco, are the region’s best reds.