Italy Trip Report- Positano, Rome, Montalcino, Florence

As always the board is a great source for trip planning so going to share some of our experiences on our trip that’s wrapping up in Italy. We weren’t sure we were going to make it but very glad we went through with it. No issues while we’ve been here and we head home tomorrow.

I’m not going to post pics but if you want to see some check them out on IG.

Positano
Our first time on the Amalfi coast. We decided to stay down at the beach at the Hotel Covo dei Saraceni Positano. My buddy stayed there during his honeymoon and we were quite happy with it.
Restaurants:
Our overall favorite was La Taverna del Leone Home - Ristorante Positano - Pizzeria - La Taverna del Leone. We ended up eating there twice. It’s located right outside of town on the way to Priano. Short taxi ride from the central garage in town. Really terrific food, wine and service. We got to know Giuseppe the owner along with his family. We had the 2016 Tiagnello the first night. A bargain at $110e and really quite approachable and damn good. Highlight dishes were Zucchini flowers( best on the trip) , seafood salad, ravioli capresi, egg tortelli with lobster, tagliatelle with black truffle, paccheri with fish ragoout. Guiseppe and his team are terrific hosts and highly recommend a visit here.

Zass- in the Hotel Il San Pietro, Michellin one star in an incredible location. We came here on our final night in Positano. A very close second as the food, service, location and wine were outstanding. La Taverna get’s the nod slightly for value and getting to know the owners but Zass is well within what you would expect for a resort and restaurant at this level. Looks like I didn’t take any pics or notes on the food but the apps and tortelli pasta were fantastic. I couldn’t pass up the 2015 Rinalidi Tre Tine priced well below current retail both in Italy and the US. While it was young it really opened up over the course of 2 hours and was outstanding. The Head Somm was off that night and his 2nd is charge was a delightful young lady who was so passionate about wine. It was a blast picking her brain and we shared a nice taste of the Rinaldi with her. They were also pouring the 2016 Il Poggione Brunello by the glass. Wow is this good and really showed well. Surprised a bit by the notes on CT based on what we tasted. I picked up some of the 13 in Montalcino but will be grabbing this when we get home. All in all a fantastic night at Zass.

To be continued

Don Alfonso

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Hi Fred
Thanks for posting the notes (and in advance for the ones to follow). Glad to hear that it’s gone well and safely.
You certainly drank well on the trip - something that is so easy to do when markups are so low, that they give the impression of mark_downs_

I don’t know exactly what it is about zucchini flowers, but they really do makes what’s stuffed inside of them shine. I’ve made them a couple of times myself, and despite them being rather messy to make (even more so than arancini), they even work well for me.

The seafood is very impressive along the coast (as you’d expect I guess). I’m still not enthusiastic about seafood / shellfish, but eating in that part of Italy really helped me start to appreciate it. A special acknowledgement to A’Paranza in Atrani, as their degustazione menu was a fine education of IIRC 27 little lessons [wink.gif] with a lemon dessert to finish that defied our belief that we couldn’t eat a single bite more.

Regards
Ian

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Hi Ian ! - your info for the coast was very helpful. We discovered some great things on this trip from Campania. The flowers at La Taverna were stuffed with Buffalo Ricotta and the cheese was incredible. We had it again in Ravello at Villa Marie and in the tortelli at Zass. We saw it all over the coast but then not in Rome or Tuscany. We also loved the whites of the region and Marisa Cuomo Fiorduva was an absolute favorite.

Cheers

Our favorite outings were the ferry to Amalfi and then taxi up to Ravello. We had a nice lunch at Villa Marie thanks to several who recommended. The view is incredible and they had some great eggplant and squash dishes to keep it light. We took the 1500 steps down to Minori to try Limone Delight at Sal De Riso. While I paid the price the next day for the 9 miles of walking and all those steps the Limone delight was more than worth it.


Dinner at Don Alfonso 1890 was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It more than lived up to it’s 2 star reputation and is a must visit if your on the Amalfi coast. They arranged a great car service for pick up and drop off. After a day of lounging by the pool we rented a boat with Captain to do a boat/swim tour of Capri and check out Lo Scoglio which is in between Sorrento and Positano. If you saw Stanley Tucci’s searching for Italy then you saw his visit here to meet the Tommaso family and have the famous pasta ala nerano. We had a terrific time on the boat and it was great visiting Lo Scoglio that way. They tie off to a mooring ball and a boat zips out to pick you up. When we walked up the steps to the restaurant at the first table we see Bobby Flay with a dining companion. We said hello and told him we enjoyed his podcast. He was very nice and clearly enjoying is lunch. We had the pasta w zucchini. It was excellent and i think they use more butter than what they showed on the show and what we’ve used in the past. They also did a great job with their eggplant meatballs and grilled prawns though a little disappointed to get 4 prawns for what they charged. We saw many families enjoying some incredible seafood so next time we’re doing dinner and giving ourselves plenty of time. They have an outstanding wine list as well. Should be on your list if your on the coast and can make it there as a boat is the fastest. Hotel Lo Scoglio | Lo Scoglio da Tommaso | Restaurant

Rome- Hard to pick favorite meal between Roscioli Salumeria and Armando Al Pantheon. Very different experiences and loved them both. At Armando it was just my wife and I as our friends wanted to get a visit to Il Pagliaccio and were able to get a lunch spot. I thought the pasta at Aramando was just perfect. The amatriciana and cacio pepe were perfect and the veal was also excellent. Great wine selection as well and very good service. All in all we loved it.

Roscioli was a blast. We had the corner table in the back of the dining room and were there for 3 hours. Our friends joined us so we got to try lots of dishes and wines. The Fiorduva we had in Campania started us off then a 2013 Elio Grasso Case Mate. While young it opened up over the meal and was excellent. We ended up with a 15 Rosso Montalcino before espresso and desert. The oxtail tortelli with foie gras and fig sauce was insanely good and their Carbonara was perfect. We also hit Antico Forno twice for mortadella and foccia snacks. Their mortadella is something to dream about. We also had it at Roscioli. I didn’t think I’d eat dinner on our final night after Roscioli but we all rallied and hit Pizzeria Emma for some pies and Brunello. All their concepts were right near our hotel so as good as they are they were easy picks.

We also went to Ragna D’oro and had a really nice meal. It’s in a great little neighborhood and was great to eat with a mix of local’s and tourists. Their fried apps were perfect, pasta’s were very good and the highlight for me were the grilled prawns. My only knock would be a little bigger wine list but we found a few we enjoyed and the entire dinner was a silly value.

My wife and I had one more afternoon in Rome on Saturday before flying home yesterday. We got lucky and got a 3pm table at Roscioli( couldn’t pass up another visit) and had a much lighter but terrific lunch. We snuck in some final snacks that night at Pizzeria Italia dal 1987. They serve the classic square pizza’s and they were the perfect way to end our trip.

Montalcino and Florence to come.

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Fred…finish your homework [wink.gif]

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Love both these restaurants. For pasta, I’d say Roscioli Salumerica has the best carbonara and Armando Al Pantheon has the best cacio e pepe. Both absolute go-to restaurants while in Rome…

The carbonara at Roscioli was the best. We did cacio at Armano and it was perfect but the only spot we tried Cacio.

We had amatriciana at both Armando and Roscioli and gave Armando the nod. Both were excellent but Armando’s was just perfect.

We have some friends coming over tomorrow and making some fresh pasta and some of the dishes we cooked @Locanda Dematra.

@Rhodes- will be finishing up this weekend. That pesky work thing got in the way this week :slight_smile:

We rented a car in Rome and drove to Montalcino. Really easy and pretty drive on the autostrada. We stayed at a small B&B towards the bottom of the village. We explored the village and tasted wines at https://www.enotecalafortezza.com/. They’re located in the fort so also some awesome views of the village and countryside. I ended up picking up a case to ship home. Another great shop in town with probably 30+ wines available for tasting was https://enotecadipiazza.com/.

Dinner the first night was excellent. Boccon Divino is right outside the village with amazing views of the countryside. Really great spot with a solid wine list and very good execution on the food. We would definitely go back. Enjoyed a 2016 Col d’ Orca Brunello with dinner that showed very well.
https://www.boccondivinomontalcino.it/web

The only winery visit was lunch and tasting at Podere il Cocco. Giacomo Bindi is the husband of one of the partners at Locanda Demantra and his family property is a farm, small restaurant, boarding house, family home and winery all in one. Beautiful rustic property out in the countryside. He makes 2500 cases of sparkline, rose, rosso and Brunello. I think the Brunello is about half his production. Great guy who is clearly passionate about everything they do. Like many small businesses he’s had a real hard time hiring this year so other than his chef has no help at the restaurant and other than harvest is mainly a one man shop at the winery. Great pics of the farm on the website Il COCCO | Agriturismo e Brunello a Montalcino

Food was great with a solid prosciutto and melon starter and I had a classic pappardelle con ragu and my wife had gnocchi w brunello sauce. Mine was very good with a perfect sauce and homemade pasta. I loved my wife’s. It was like cacio pepe but cooked with a good bit of brunello. Will have to try this one at home. Since Giacomo is by himself he scheduled one visit/tasting for a group of folks. We enjoyed hanging out at the farm while others arrived and he got ready for the tasting. We had a wide variety of folks from Europe and US. I enjoyed all the wines. His sparkling is really nice and crisp and perfect for a starter. The standout though is his Brunello. His style leans traditional and pretty minimal intervention. He believes in wines that are fresh, have good acid and really represent Montalcino. I loved the 16 and thought it really represented his style. Fresh and bright with nice acid it showed great. Medium body in weight with great flavors and depth. It’s drinking really well now and a silly value at $30E. I bought a mixed case mostly 16’s and a few 15’s. His 15’s will need a lot of time and he recommended another few years in the cellar before trying. Even with shipping back home a great wine for the price.

He does a 80-90% of his wines direct with many in the US. If you get a chance to try a bottle grab it and if I see any of y’all at an offline I’ll be sure to bring a bottle.

We’ve been asked a bunch of times what was our favorite part of our trip. We had some awesome days and tough to pick a favorite experience but the day we had a boat on the coast and the 5 hours hours we spent at Locanda Dementra would be the tops of our trip. Locanda is a cooking school and restaurant in Montelcino that I heard about from our own Dennis Attack from his trip report in 2019. I booked the cooking class for our trip in Sept 2019 but ended up having to cancel as my buddy who was on the trip was able to line up a private tour, tasting and lunch with the Vinter at Col d’ Orca. I promised my wife when we came back to Italy we would make it happen. After buying the plane tickets it was the first reservation I made.

Locanda was started by 3 siblings with a passion for cooking, wine and hospitality https://montalcinocookingschool.com/ . If you’ve watched the Discovery + show Bobby and Giada in Italy they were on episode 4. They bought the property in 2015 and have put 5+ years clearing, rebuilding and creating Locanda. It is a fantastic property and a small piece of heaven in Tuscany. The cooking school was terrific. It was a 101 level school and the focus is as much about having fun as it is cooking. It starts with a tour of their garden and the history and philosophy in everything they do. The youngest Allesandro was our host and is also the chef. He was a fantastic host and chef. His passion was contagious. We got lucky the day we went as the restaurant was closed for lunch so it was just us and another couple the entire time. One of the best parts of our trip was all the great folks we met. At Locanda the other guests were a young couple from Israel. They had just finished their University studies(after military service) and were spending 4 weeks in Italy. They’re a few years older than our kids but we immediately hit it off with them. They were a big part in why it was such a special day. We had a fantastic time with them especially over the meal.

The class starts with how to make fresh pasta. I know many on the board probably have this skill but I was happy to learn and my wife fine tuned her skills. We made fusilli, cavatelli, ravioli and tagliatelle. The fusilli was the hardest and we used 2 knitting needles to make. We then moved on to a pancetta wrapped and nut crusted pork tenderloin. We cook pork quite a bit and I’m a big fan of new recipes for tenderloin. Nothing to fancy but a simple and delicious recipe. What stood out was the pancetta. It looked like the best bacon I’ve ever seen. Definitely not what we see in the states or at least Florida. After prepping the pork we walked through the ravioli filling- sheep’s milk ricotta, fresh pear, walnuts, honey and salt and pepper. So simple but perfectly balanced and executed. We finished making the ravioli and started on a traditional Tuscan tiramisu. No alcohol in the recipe. Lady fingers soaked in espresso then we layered in the filling, and did 3 levels in a coffee cup. It came out great. I need to confirm the filling with my wife and will share the recipe. At some point after we had made the pasta dough we opened a bottle of their IGT Sangiovese wine from their vineyards. It was a 2019 that saw a year in barrel and one in bottle. It’s labeled IGT as they’re not licensed for Brunello or Rosso. It had more oomph than a Rosso D Montalcino and drank really well. It was really nice on it’s own and with lunch. One to drink while you wait for the brunello and chianti to age.

After finishing all the prep the class ends and moves onto relaxing and getting ready for lunch. Chef finished off everything we created:
Tagliatelle Bolognese- classic prep
Cavatelli and Fusilli pomodoro
Ravioli we made finished with a light simple brown butter sauce.
Pancetta wrapped Pork over a fresh insalata from their garden.
Tiramisu and coffee

I ate way too much food. It was just too good to pass up and they packed up a bunch for our friends and we took a small amount with us. I can’t recommend Locandra enough. If your a serious cook you might not appreciate the class quite as much but I have a feeling they might be able to customize the experience. If you don’t want to do the class the food, location and people should be top of your list for either lunch or dinner if your near Montalcino.They’re currently the #1 rated spot on TA. All in all a fantastic day we’ll never forget.




more pics
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A few pics from the first leg of the trip on the Amalfi coast.
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How I’m doin now Rhodes [cheers.gif]

I’ve giving you extra credit for providing pictures with your work. [wink.gif]

With our planned trip to Tuscany (Pienza/Chianti/Florence) in May, I’m loving this! [cheers.gif]

Not sure if your planning a day trip to Montalcino but you could easily taste 30+ wines in town at the Enoteca’s explore the village then enjoy lunch at Boccon or Locanda.

As good as the food was at both for pure food I’d give La Bandita the edge. We were going to make the drive for dinner after our day Monday at Il Cocco but decided to stay in town. I didn’t post about that dinner but was regretting not going to La Bandita. Just wasn’t up for the drive after a long day. Chef David is still there.

Final leg of the trip in Florence coming up…

Excellent write-up Fred !

Thanks Ian ! I feel like I’m leaving a ton out. The pic 3rd from above( above the truffles) you might recognize that view. That’s toward the top of the walk from Ravello down to Minori. The steps were worth it to try the limone delight.

cheers

Planning on going to Montalcino on 2 days. Was thinking about going to a winery one day, and hitting the enoteca’s you have mentioned in town the other day.

Already planning on La Bandits after your previous recommendations…Maybe twice [wink.gif]

The final few days of our trip were spent in Florence. We really love the city and had a great time walking most of the old city and visiting the Academia and climbing the Duomo. I was surprised to see how different the Florence Duomo is to the one in Sienna. I have to say I prefer the one in Sienna but both are beautiful.

As for restaurants we had great lunches at La Bussola. We love doing lunch there and just solid food and quite a good wine list. They’re usually pouring some good wines by the glass too. Our other lunch was a great visit to board favorite Enoteca Pitti Gola. We had a fantastic 2006 Monteraponi Chianti Classico Riserva Il Campitello and some terrific light snacks. First 2 pics below are from our visit there. The Chianti was an incredible value compared to today’s pricing.

Dinners- We had 2 we really enjoyed and one that was a miss for us. Ora d’Aria was fantastic. It was very much worth it’s one star and some dishes were incredible. My 2 favorites were the suckling pig and beef cheek tortelli both pictured below. They were just outstanding. We also had a solid dinner at Parione. The pasta dishes were some of the best of the trip. Our only issue is the small dining room we were sat in got rather hot and I had worn a heavy short expecting a cooler evening. The miss for us was Cibreo. We might be in the minority on this as the place was packed and several here give it a strong reco. We really struggled with the menu to find some dishes we might enjoy and I also wasn’t a fan of the wine list.

All in all a fantastic time in Florence. There really is nothing like walking through town after dinner. There is a buzz you can’t describe and just have to experience. We usually caught some music in one of the squares including an incredible violin player one evening. We’re already planning our return visit.
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Had dinner here last night. It was excellent, and the 2013 Chianti Classico Reserva we had off the list was very good. It’s very convenient to our hotel and we were a bit tired from all the climbing we had to do at the Uffizi, Palazzo Vecchio, and Pitti Palace. Tonight we’ll venture further afield.