Tuscany boasts bountiful supplies of fruit and vegetables (tomatoes here are perhaps the best in the world), wild game, and a Mediterranean coast that offers a wide variety of fish and seafood. In addition to regularly eating beef and pork, Tuscans are meat-obsessed, incorporating wild hare and wild boar to their cuisine. Street vendors sell anything from trippa (tripe) sandwiches to lampredotto (braised cow stomach with onions, celery and parsley). If street vendors are not your thing and you want to go the Michelin way, Tuscany is full of them. Enoteca Pinchiorri has three Michelin stars to its name and seamlessly blends Tuscan traditions with international influences. Arnoflo is a must visit for fine-dining gourmands. With two Michelin stars, the restaurant offers a seasonal menu, letting the local ingredients sing on your plate. Lucca is an old walled city, surrounded with greenery, wrapped with a tree-lined walkway that has a host of restaurants serving Tuscan specialities as well as dishes unique to it. A favourite, with nearly every restaurant serving it, is tordelli Lucchesi, a crescent- shaped, meat-filled, beef ragu-topped pasta. Serving guests for centuries as one of the region’s oldest restaurants, Buca di Sant’Antonio is the best of Italy’s old-world charm. With copper pots and pans covering its ceiling and a menu of traditional favourites, you simply cannot escape the warmth and homely atmosphere. We can’t talk of Italy’s cuisine and not talk of its wines. Tucked away inside an ancient medieval tower in Siena, in the basement of a 5-star hotel, is the SaporDivino cellar, a haven for those with a passion for the good life. It houses 3,000 labels and hosts tastings on reservation.
Arnoflo is a must visit for fine-dining gourmands. With two Michelin stars, the restaurant offers a seasonal menu, letting the local ingredients sing on your plate.
a castle hosted by the Ricasoli family who have been producing wine since 1141, wine in a village (Osteria Castello di Volpaia) dedicated to the production of the area’s pride, wine in the famous Antinori family’s unusual and fascinating winery, organic wine off the beaten track and into the dirt roads of Fattoria Le Masse – take your pick in the beating heart of Italian wine country.
Tuscany has something for everyone – family-run cafes serving up wholesome breads, pizzas as light as clouds, coffee by the connoisseurs
themselves, handmade and freshly cut pasta, light yet indulgent gelatos, bustling food markets and trattorias and osterias that entice you into embracing the ways of slow, countryside Italian living.
Covering nearly all the land between Siena and Florence is Chianti Classico. Wine tastings and lunch in
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