Off the Beaten Path: Tuscany

For me, travel and food go hand in hand. Whether I’m eating fresh buffalo mozzarella, roasted guinea pig, or aged ham, I savor my meals abroad because I know it’ll be unlikely that I’ll ever eat the same things at home. The chief foodie in my family, I always try to research the area we travel to to find the best restaurants. However, finding authentic food abroad can be frustrating in popular areas, where fast-service restaurants aimed at tourists have taken over. By taking the extra time to venture into quieter areas of a city, I’ve been able to find some amazing (and cheap!) food when I travel.

Last summer, I stayed for four days in the heart of Tuscany, an hour outside of Florence. It was like living inside a postcard: our suite was inside a renovated barn on a hillside, surrounded by olive groves, with a pool overlooking the valley below. We saw more pro cycling teams than we did cars using the winding road leading from the highway to our village. We were deep in the country, with just the occasional hamlets and villas dotting the road.

Even in this amazing setting, the food is what I remember most about my stay. Our second night there, my parents and I wanted to see the sunset while we ate, so we picked a restaurant with a large terrace looking west: La Cantinella. Weary from a day on foot exploring Florence, we were just happy to have a relaxing dinner outside. The place was quite small – there were only five tables on the terrace, the only dining area – so we were surprised when our server greeted us in English. The menu was traditionally Tuscan, and everything sounded so delicious – from the bruschetta, to the rabbit, to the many pastas and truffle dishes, it was difficult to choose.

I still remember what I ordered that night: a sampler of local specialties as an appetizer and roasted rabbit for my main course. The sophistication and quality of the food caught us all off guard – you’d be hard pressed to find a prettier plate of food in Philly. It was all wonderfully fresh and hot, clearly prepared by someone who knew their way around an Italian kitchen. My dad and I had been delighted by some good meals a few days earlier in Rome, but this seemed to be a whole different caliber of food. This was Italian cooking at its finest – simple dishes made with fresh, high quality ingredients. We sat for a couple of hours after sunset and enjoyed the three course meal. Besides us, there was only one large family and one couple at the restaurant, and they, too, stayed and sipped wine long after dark.

After finishing the last morsels of our desserts, we asked our waiter to reserve us a table for the following night. It was only as we were leaving that we noticed all of the stickers on the door – many of them with emblazoned with the “Michelin” logo. It seems that we weren’t the first ones to find this hidden gem, but we were certainly happy to have it almost to ourselves for a few nights.

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