In love with Tuscany

Last post of November dedicated to some other amazing experience we had in this lovely region of Italy.

Being in Chianti last weekend driving through this amazing hills with an enchanting view was just magical, all these colours mixing up like in a beautiful painting...it was just a fantastic experience

Our path leads us to the tiny and very typical village of Panzano in Chianti were we booked for lunch at Dario +.
Dario Cecchini is a butcher in this village that thanks to his smartness and definitely good marketing create a huge business around the famous and typical bistecca alla fiorentina. In the village there is his butcher shop plus three restaurant, Dario + opened only for lunch and where we had our meal, Solociccia opened only for dinner and l'Officina della Bistecca.

Our lunch was lovely not only for the very high quality of the food (for lunch two menus are proposed, one that includes a fantastic hamburger made with this high quality meat, and a second called accoglienza that includes a dish called "sushi del Chianti" and other top local delicacies) but also for the conviviality and the possibility you have to make new friends during the meal. Lunch is in fact served on a big table where everybody can make friendship with their neighbour, so that's what we did! A very nice experience extremely recommended. Also to mention, you can take your own wine and drink it with no additional charge!

Cinta senese

After this lovely lunch we headed to a meat and salumi paradise, Macelleria Falorni in Greve In Chianti. In the beautiful main square of Greve under the arcades you find this place where you can really find all what a meat lover want including an incredible selection of all different and possible kind of salumi. We are looking forward to try some of the Cinta Senese specialities we bought there!!!!

And to close these set of recommendation we cannot avoid to mention a place where you can find some good wines to pair with all these lovely flavours. The place to go when in Firenze is Vinoteca al Chianti. Fantastic selection of sometime very small italian producer but also some fantastic stuff from Burgundy and an amazing selection of Champagne. At the end of my morning of purchase they offer me a little sip from a bottle that they had there open without telling me what it was. As soon as the liquid touch my lips it blows my mind....no wonder, it was an Yquem 1982!!! Only this was worth the trip to this fantastic enoteca. A must go for all wine lovers.

MILANO

Lovely weekend spent in my city that I am starting to love more and more now that I am not living there anymore. No restaurants to talk about considering that both nights we were there we had excellent dinner at friend's places where we shared some great food and a few amazing bottle of wines.
What I want to briefly talk about are a few places in Milano that I absolutely love and one more recent discovery.

First of all my favorite wine shop: Cantine Isola in Via Paolo Sarpi. In the middle of the Chinatown of Milano you can find this amazing little wine shop with one of the best and most interesting wine selection in town. You can feel the passion and the continuos research that the owners put to choose the labels they are presenting. Also, not to forget, this place is a great spot for "aperitivo" considering that they have an incredible number of wines that you can try by the glass together with an interesting selection of different kind of crostini that keep going out of the kitchen during the whole evening. Really a place not to miss in town.

A few steps away from the enoteca you can find another little gem for gourmet fanatics: La Baita del Formaggio. As the name may suggest here the speciality is cheese, an incredible selection, but also their salumi and cotechino are good. If I would be living in this area would be so easy to organize a dinner with such amazing shops nearby!!!

Another "must go" for me when I am in town is Comptoir de France in the area of Porta Romana. First of all is a wine shop, with an amazing selection of wines from all region in France. But the real reason that took me here every time I am in town is to make a supply of terrine. They have a great variety of this amazing pate' coming from different french region. Our favorite is the most classic "Terrine de Campagne". Amazing paired with a glass of simple and easy red wine.

And now the most recent discovery. Downtown Milano in one of the side gallery in Corso Vittorio Emanuele a new super-luxury mall opened:Excelsior Milano. What interests us (especially me!!!) is the heaven you will find on the floors underground. First of all a really interesting cellars with a beautiful wine selection plenty of interesting labels and producers. But then the food section....I can hardly imagine a better selection of delicacies all in one place than here. If you love food I think this place will become one of your hot spot not only in Milano but in the whole Italy. Try and judge it yourself!!

And as I mentioned at the beginning let's talk a bit about the wines we had during the week end as well.
First of all an amazing red coming from the North part of the Rhone Valley. Crozes Hermitage La Rouvre 2007 from Yann Chave. An amazing and complex Syrah and definitely one of the best price-quality value I had recently. Normally wines from this denomination are less considered and easier but this one was really a hit.
Another very different but also quite impressive red was the Grumello 2007 from Mamete Prevostini. I love these Nebbiolos coming from the mountain not only for their elegance and perfumes, but also because I love this area of Italy and I admire all the work that all the winegrowers of this area needs to do in order to produce these fantastic wines. Chapeau to all of them!
Another mountain wine, a very different product. The "Vino da Uva Stramatura - Fletry Au Vent" from Grosjean. A passito (sweet style of wine) with grapes dried by the wind produced in Valle D'Aosta in a very limited number of bottles. Absolutely lovely it paired amazingly with our dessert.
And from Italy to France again for the last wine. Coteaux de Layon Fleurs d'Erables 2010 from Domaine des Sablonnettes. Chenin blanc from the Loire Valley produced by this really small Domaine. Not overly sweet was a fantastic companion for a cheese plate with a selection of Brie de Meaux, Vacherin Mont d'Or, Blue d'Auvergne and Langres. 

Around Europe

I am in the middle of another big period of travels.  Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Rumania, Italy, and not much time to enjoy this autumn at home taking advantage of all the bottles lying in my cellar to drink in front of the roaring fire in one of this humid and chilly November night. But should I really complain? Of course not, I am living so many beautiful experiences, meeting a huge amount of interesting people with so many different cultures and of course, why not, trying and sampling some fantastic and interesting new dishes.

In this moment I am in Firenze, where we are keeping finding unbelievable restaurant and trying the old ones that we already loved. Last night we went again at Osteria Io Personale (see my previous post) and experienced again a fantastic culinary delight. Today for lunch we found another hidden gem, Il Teatro del Sale close to the amazing mercato di Sant'Ambrogio where you can find amazing fruit and vegetables and what your foodie mind always dreamed about. Teatro del Sale is part of a group of restaurant all in this corner of the city and it is connected to the restaurant Cibreo one of the most renowned restaurant in Florence. It's a private circle (but is pretty easy to become a member) and it works as a restaurant but in the night there are all kind of events that you can enjoying while having dinner (music, theatre etc.) and it works as well as a gastronomy shop with some incredible quality products in offer. I found here a wine that I was looking for that I had almost no hope to find especially in Italy. It is produced by a guy from Florence that moved to France in the area of Banyuls, deep south of France, closed to the border with Spain. Check out the website : http://www.vinyerdelaruca.com/
This wine is produced in only 1000 bottles in a complete byodinamic environment with maniacal precision to details. Also the bottle shape is very different and fascinating and apparently all bottles are handmade by a friend of him leaving next to his vineyards. It is not cheap but I am so glad that now one bottle is going to be in the cellar. I can see this wine to be the best companion to an amazing chocolate dessert.
Coming back to our lunch the concept in this restaurant is pretty casual but the quality of food is really top. There are a number of antipasti that you can take from a large buffet, all with seasonal vegetables and freshly made. We had some creamy and lovely polenta, a broccoli pure' , a lentils salad, some beets and potatoes salad and a few others. Also all the bread and focaccia that you can choose are handmade and so flavourful. From the open kitchen the chefs are screaming which plate will come out next and when the plate is out all the people go queue (shortly) for their portion. Today we also had some lovely paccheri with tomato sauce and an incredible grilled chicken with roasted potatoes. Really a simple but amazing lunch.


Our restaurant in Georgia


Just coming back a few days ago, precisely to last Sunday I also want to spend a few words about my Georgian adventure. Considering I was with a colleague in Trabzon for work we decided to head to Georgia, that is only two hours away, precisely to the city of Batumi, a seaside resort on the black sea. Trip was lovely all along the coast and it is incredible to see how simply and poorly some people can leave. Once we pass the border you can still feel that we are in an ex Russian republic and some ruins of ex Russian Army camp can still be seen. The city is weird, mixing new and incredibly modern building to some ex Soviet Union style huge building almost falling apart. Foodwise the experience was interesting. We went to one of the nicer restaurant in town and food was, I would say, pretty good. Some differenf little fish as appetizer and a very nice Batumi Kebab as main dish, consisting in very tasting meat mixed with some beautiful yogurt. The thing I loved more of the whole lunch experience then was the bread. Just ouf from the oven, warm and absolutely delightful. This world is full of surprise and that's why is so exciting (even if a bit tiring) travelling so much.

Lovely Georgian bread