Eating our way through (northern) Italia
We knew Switzerland wasn’t necessarily known for it’s food — though the folks over at Bell’s Los Alamos did their best to give us an encouraging perspective — but I don’t think either of us were really cognizant of how much we missed scrumptious plates until our first meal in Italy. Though many of the restaurants were closed during our visit for the winter holidays, we were able to enjoy our fair share of delicious meals during our visit.
We started our stay in Tuscany with a traditional meal — shared pastas, Tuscan bean soup (which is more of a stew than a soup), meats and, of course, chianti classico wine, coffees + dessert — at Antica Trattoria la Toppa, a sweet little restaurant in the old town of San Donato, just a few kilometers down the winding road from our castle airbnb. The group consensus was that the pasta was hands-down the best we had of the entire trip, and we were all surprised by how much we all enjoyed the homemade pannacotta dessert.
The following day we enjoyed a true highlight moment: a pre fixe lunch at Dario Ceccini, a butchershop and restaurant in the hilltop town of Panzano. Though we’d all wondered whether this might be the butchership-kitchen that made its way into the pages of Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, which we’d read recently as part of a work bookclub, we weren’t quite prepared for the experience ahead. Turns out, Dario Ceccini is well known enough to have a whole episode of the Netflix series, Chef’s Table, dedicated to it.
We quickly discovered why: eight courses, almost all meat with a bean interlude and olive oil cake dessert, left our bellies overwhelmingly full and our taste buds craving more. After being greeted in the street with a jug of table wine and full glasses tossed into our hands, ushered into a nearly-invisible restaurant and served by a man completely disinterested in anything much more than sharing the meal’s title in rapid italian and serving it to the table, we found ourselves wowed by the nearly 4 hour dining experience. It was a meal we will not soon forget, especially the dish titled Rosemary up the Bum, equal parts delicious and hilarious.
After taking the day to cook from home on Christmas, we spent Boxing Day exploring Florence. Still somehow full from our meat-heavy meal and a delicious Christmas dinner, we kept to coffee shops and winebars for our Florence food excursions. I enjoyed perhaps the best carrot cake of my life at La Menagerie before we headed off to see the David and the Duomo (wow, those external decorations sure are breathtaking!), and we rounded out the afternoon with some delightful wines and crostini bites at Enoteca Bellini, a small family-run wine bar known for their toasts and extensive wine collection. We ended the afternoon with more city-street meanderings and some gelato before heading back to the car and the road home.
Following our day in Florence, we began our journey north of the city towards the Venetian countryside by stopping at a much-looked-forward-to restaurant with gorgeous views overlooking the entire Florentine valley: Coquinarius, a modern Italian restaurant in Fiesole. There, we feasted on pistachio + red onion ravioli, osso bucco + mushroom + truffle tortellos, a scrumptious grilled octopus and, of course, dessert + espressos to top it all off. And a bottle of red wine to share, of course! It was a treat for many reasons to be on vacation with our friends, but perhaps the best perk aside from the company was the ability to share a variety of incredible dishes family-style throughout our time together. So many more flavors can be explored when there’s a group to feast upon them!
After bidding adieu to our friends, Freddy, Obi and I headed north to an apartment in an old Venetian countryside estate. After so many days of good food, we were excited to keep things a little bit more low-key during the second half of our travels, enjoying a quiet meal at Osteria Guerriero in the beautiful old town of Arqua Petrarca. The next day we laid low, munching on tuna-tomato-baguette sandwiches reminiscent of Shona’s time living in Spain and then grabbing an easy pizza dinner just down the road from the airbnb. Perhaps one of our favorite meals wasn’t a meal “out” at all, but rather an order from a homemade meals takeaway shop just next door to the pharmacy where we waited to get covid tests for our border crossing. A meal made in heaven consumed right on our couch: ossobuco, lasagna, and sautéed veggies all over a bed of pasta. Yum! Currently wishing we’d bought so much more and stuck it in the freezer to bring home to Leysin.
I’m already missing the delightful homemade pesto available in nearly every local grocery store, the abundance of pizza + calzone spots for quick meals on the go, the abundance of mushrooms and kale all the shops (why are they so hard to find here in Switzerland?!), and the affordability of nearly everything food-related in Italy. Can’t wait to go back!
Love from our Leysin,
sbmc
