Restaurants in Northern & Western Tuscany
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La Corte dei Vini
Strategically placed between Piazza Napoleone and Piazza San Michele, this friendly ‘enoteca e picola cucina’ (wine bar and small kitchen) is a great choice for an aperitivo or casual meal. It specialises in rustic dishes, including tortelli Lucchesi (meat ravioli) and minestra di farro della Garbagnana (soup made with spelt). Get here early to score a choice table on the front terrace.
reviewed
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Cibbé
Wine bottles fill the shelves and tables are marble-topped at this no-frills osteria tucked behind a box-hedge terrace. Hailed by Slow Food as a gatekeeper of local culinary custom, Cibbé is the place to try bozza di Prato (a round unsalted bread loaf typical to Prato) and mortadella di Prato (smoked pork salami spiced with black pepper corns, nutmeg, coriander and garlic).
reviewed
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Osteria La Barrocciaia
The worst-kept dining secret in Livorno it may be, but locating Barrocciaia still takes a careful eye, what with it being the most inconspicuous facade and well-hidden sign in Piazza Cavallotti. Big sandwiches (€5) are sold out of the tiny front room, but with luck and timing you can score a table and enjoy the real reason every local speaks of this place with reverence.
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Cantina Senese
Food- and value-conscious harbour workers are the first to fill the long wooden tables at this wonderfully unpretentious and friendly eatery, with neighbourhood families arriving later. Ordering is frequently done via faith in one's server, rather than by menu. The mussels are exceptional, as is the cacciucco, both served with piquant garlic bread.
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Trattoria da Leo
Another address everyone knows and goes to, Leo is famed Lucca-wide for its friendly ambience and cheap food – which ranges from acceptable to delicious. Get here early to snag one of 10 tables lined up beneath racing-green parasols on the street outside and go for vitello tonnato (cold veal with a tuna and caper sauce) followed by fig and walnut tart. No credit cards.
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Enoteca D.O.C. Parole e Cibi
Changes its menu weekly; you can enjoy fresh pasta dishes, superb seafood and a variety of carpaccio served with bread that - for once - is entirely worth that vexing coperto (cover charge in restaurants). The wines are excellent; it styles itself as an enoteca, olioteca (oil) and whiskyteca so you can be confident of getting top quality lubricants, whatever your preference. For dessert, a sugary, chocolate pastry, with vanilla cream.
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Ristoro al Vecchio Teatro
The Vecchio Teatro’s genial host is proud of his set menu, and for good reason. The four courses are dominated by local seafood specialities and diners will encounter delights such as torta di ceci infranti con le arselle (an unusual savoury cake of smashed chickpeas with mussels) and risotto with prawns and orange. The dessert finale includes a castagnaccio (sweet chestnut cake) that has been known to prompt diners to spontaneous applause.
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Antica Trattoria il Campano
The adventurous Tuscan menu - pasta with leeks in cod sauce, octopus salad, or beef marinated with tomatoes, almonds and hazelnuts - at this long-time trattoria has the added advantage of being translated in English. Of the dining areas - under vaulted arches down or beneath bare rafters up - downstairs is the more elegant. Tagliere del Re (minimum two people) - a wonderfully rich platter of 12 kinds of Tuscan antipastos - is a meal in itself.
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Il Montino
There is nothing flash or fancy about Il Montino, a brilliantly down-to-earth pizzeria with iconic status among Pisans, student or sophisticate. Order pizza to take away or grab one of a handful of tightly packed tables, inside or out, and munch on house specialities like cecina (chickpea pizza), castagnacci (chestnut cake) and spuma (sweet, nonalcoholic drink). Or go for a foccacine (flat roll) filled with salami, pancetta or porchetta (suckling pig). Hidden in a back alley, the quickest way to find Il Montino is to head west along Via Ulisse Dini from the northern end of Borgo Stretto (opposite the Lo Sfizio cafe at Borgo Stretto 54) to Piazza San Felice where it is…
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La Clessidra
At the upper end of Pisa's dining scale, La Clessidra cooks up a clutch of themed menus, including a menu tipico di Pisano (minimum two people) featuring wholly local fare, and a seafood equivalent, in a formal setting. Dolci (desserts) are girth-widening and the tourist-free green lawns of neighbouring Piazza Martiri della Libertà are a post lunch siesta delight.
reviewed
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Osteria dei Cavalieri
The Slow Food recommendation for central Pisa, this osteria (wine bar) serves a high-speed, one-dish only - but what a dish - the lunchtime special alongside an enticing array of other tasty morsels, including carpaccio di pulpo (octopus carpaccio). Although the size of portions may mean a siesta afterwards, the set meals are worth it and the wine list is impressive.
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Locanda di Bacco
It is strictly cucina lucchese e Toscana - albeit of a refreshingly creative nature - at this fine specimen of a restaurant, grandly situated in an old building, with marble-topped tables. Pappardelle with hare, gnocchi with gorgonzola, honey and nuts, or a side order of cabbage cooked in red pepper wine, garlic and oil are among the many dishes with an imaginative twist.
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Locanda Buatino
A Lucca legend, this age-old trattoria - it is reckoned to be Lucca's oldest - with a fun 'n' funky air of retro wafting through it, has the added advantage of being a short walk from the madding crowds, outside the city walls. Chef Angelo chalks up a different menu daily - cionca (veal's head) is a speciality. Live jazz sets the place jiving Monday, October to May.
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Machiavelli
A much-loved Lucca favourite alongside Leo, this funky old-fashioned osteria has a definite retro air to it. Walls are pea-green, the bar is painted lavender-blue and the clientele is staunchly loyal, local, fun and of all ages. There is live music some nights and the cuisine - salted cod with leeks, chickpea soup and grilled pork ribs etc - ooze natural flavour.
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Trattoria della Faggiola
This popular trattoria recently changed hands, and its loyal clientele suffered a few sleepless nights before the new owners managed to convince them that standards wouldn’t slip. Breathing sighs of relief, they continue to choose from the three or four daily specials per course, eaten in the homely interior or at streetside tables. No credit cards.
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La Tana
With friendly service and affordable prices, La Tana is a popular venue for students and staff from the nearby university. Its fare is served up on rustic wooden tables and you can snuggle down in the booths. If you're in a rush to get back to some serious monument bashing, go for the pasta veloce - served with haste and lots of taste.
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La Libertaria
Seating capacity and backdrops are meagre, but the food here is divine. The linguine sarde e finocchietto (pasta with sardines and fennel) is an unlikely treat, and the cooked-to-perfection tonno in crosta di pistacchi (tuna fillet with pistachio crust) may actually keep you in Portoferraio an extra night for a second helping.
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Enoteca Osteria Il Colonnino
Located in the warren of medieval streets between Piazza San Francesco and the river, Il Colonnino is a great spot for lunch, aperitivo or dinner, with modern-accented Italian dishes providing perfect accompaniments to an impressive wine list. The weekday lunch deal of a daily plate, water and glass of ‘good wine’ (€10) is a steal.
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Osteria Baralla
This busy osteria, rich in tradition (think 1860), is in every guidebook and for good reason. Feasting on local specialities beneath huge red-brick vaults is magnificent. Don't miss the soup with new-season olive oil, salt cod and chickpeas. On Thursday it's bolito misto (mixed boiled meat) day, Saturday roast pork.
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Gigi Trattoria
Buzzing by noon, this 1950s cantina on the old market square - revamped by three young Lucchesi in the new millennium - is another hot address among Lucchese. Recipes are plucked straight out of grandma's cookbook, local contemporary art to buy hangs on the walls and simplicity is the predominant philosophy driving the place.
reviewed
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Taddeucci
The perfect accompaniment to a mid-morning or -afternoon espresso and gift to take home, buccellato is a traditional sweet bread loaf with sultanas and aniseed seeds, baked in Lucca since 1881. Taddeucci is the pasticceria (pastry shop) to ogle at and shop for this traditional Lucchesi sweet treat. Pay €4/8/12 for a 300/600/900g loaf.
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Bar Pasticceria Salza
This old-fashioned cake shop has been tempting Pisans off Borgo Stretto and into sugar-induced wickedness since the 1920s.
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Osteria del Porton Rosso
Two menus – one from the land and one from the sea – tempt at this old-fashioned but excellent osteria (casual tavern or eatery presided over by a host) at the end of an alley – from riverside Lungarno Pacinotti look for the incongruous neon sign–lit doorway with red fly curtain. Pisan specialities such as fresh ravioli with salted cod and chickpeas happily coexist with Tuscan classics such as grilled fillet steak.
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Buca di Sant'Antonio
This atmosphere-laden restaurant, around since 1782, is an outstanding spot for tasting top-notch Italian wines. Its flattering lighting and banquette seating make it a favourite destination for romantic dinners, and its standards of service are unmatched in the city. The food doesn't quite live up to all of these attributes, alas, the rustic dishes on offer being similar to the fare served up in many other, less-expensive eateries around the region. Bookings essential.
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Prosciutto & Melone
Next door to Osteria Baralla, it's hardly haute cuisine but the fine choice of pizzas and salads alongside the mainstream primi and secondi ensure an easy midday refuel. Sit within the dark-green stable doors or snag a table on the shaded street outside.
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