Skip to main content

L'Antico Borgo Ristorante, Civitella in Val di Chiana, Italy

We were lost, hopelessly, almost irretrievably lost. My friend from California had been driving us around for several hours, all three of us having gotten very little rest after our arrival in Rome. At that point, we had been up almost 48 hours with hardly a wink on the planes we took. We were searching for Civitella in Val di Chiana, a tiny little town in the hills above the Tuscan city of Arrezzo and it was a task more difficult than we thought. The directions we received were not very clear and it didn't help our cause that the signs around this area of Italy weren't very clear, either. Once you leave the city, the Tuscan towns pretty much all look the same. Pretty, but identical. And even when we stopped to ask for directions, the language barrier was worse than we had anticipated.

Hours later, our Italian friend finally decided to meet us at a nearby hotel, easier to find than the bed and breakfast in which we were to stay. By the time we checked in to Antico Borgo—the B&B— and unloaded some of our bags, we were late almost two hours for dinner at L'Antico Borgo, the restaurant. The waiter was gracious enough, through gritted teeth, to serve us anyway. We were famished and we ate quickly. The food, the service, the night were all a blur of pastas and funghis. I was so tired I even forgot to bring my trusty camera.

Hence, the pictures here are from when we came back a few days later, to make up for the fact that we could barely keep our eyes open during the first meal. I'm glad to report that, if you're alert and awake enough, you'll find the cooking here to be sensational. Exquisite preparations, wonderful ingredients, an absolute surprise in this dinky and ancient little town whose only claim to fame, we thought, was its ruins.

Left: a simple pea soup with crostini. Right: zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta cheese on cream of fresh peas.
Left: Mousse di fegatini di pollo ruspante con pane tostato (chicken liver mousse served with toasted bread). The chicken liver was served two ways: the traditional one in the cup, the other, more intriguing one as slices of cold, soft and creamy paté. It had the texture of butter. Together with the thick balsamic vinegar, it was stunning.
Left: "Sformatini" of zucchini served with cheese fondue and bread chips. Right: panzarotti stuffed with pecorino cheese in parmigiano sauce.
Left: sirlon steak with roasted potatoes and grilled vegetables; right: pici pasta with "Nana" duck sauce.
Lamb chops scottadito-style with aromatic herbs sauce.
Left: Chianti Superiore; right: Toscana bianco - one of our favorite wines of the trip, a spicy white from Tuscany.
Left: wine-soaked pear atop sabayon; right: the restaurant's version of tiramisu.
Below: hot chocolate souffle and meringue in guazzetto of strawberry
It's not exactly a destination restaurant if you're staying in Florence, to which it is much closer than Rome. But if you're planning on going through Arezzo, it might be worth getting lost in. The B&B is also worth considering if you intend to stay in the area. It's in the midst of a very quiet town, prettier if a bit more in the boondocks than Arezzo itself, but you will need a car to get around.

L'Antico Borgo Ristorante
Via di Mezzo, 35
52041 Civitella in Val di Chiana, Arezzo, Italy
+39 0575 448160

View Larger Map

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lunch at Bale Dutung in Pampanga

Bale Dutung (Wood House) is a restaurant within artist Claude Tayag's house-cum-studio. It specializes in the regional cuisine of Pampanga or Capampangan food. It's located in Angeles City, long known for being home to Clark Air Base. Nowadays, it's known as one of the Philippines's gastronomic centers, a reputation that has elicited many a trip through the bustling province. I've had lunch there several times and it's quite an experience each time. It satisfies gastronomically and intellectually. While Claude (pronounced "cloud") stays mostly behind the scenes in the open kitchen, Mary Ann Quioc, Claude's wife, puts on a show. She tells a story behind each of the dishes. It may be a dish's history or an anecdote, and it provokes the intellect or whets the appetite, or both. Mary Ann graciously started us out with an ideal blend of dalandan juice and muscovado sugar ice cubes. Because of the nature of muscovado sugar—or inuyat as Capampanga...

Spiral - Fine Buffet Food at Sofitel Manila

Buffets were my nightmares. Seriously. My first experiences of them were back in the late 80's, in the form of American all-you-can-eat chains and the Vegas strip. Thoughts of these fluorescent-bathed establishments deliver to my mind plates of dark-edged lettuce, grease-laden meatballs and all-you-can-eat spaghetti with dubious meat sauce. Little did I know back then that these were merely temporary outposts for the 250-pound men and women on the express road to 500 pounds. But even Vegas has upped the ante of dining, upgrading its hotels to dizzyingly ostentatious luxury and, consequently its amenities to match, including its buffets and more formal sit-down restaurants. When I went back to Manila for good, one of the first places my family took me to was the strikingly modern Sofitel Manila , which houses the Spiral buffet restaurant (and a small casino). After several more visits, my nightmares, I could honestly say, are gone. Even after having eaten at the new-Vegas buffets, ...

Savoring Savoy Meal at Les Bouquinistes, Paris

"Nicole Kidman is next door, vous l'avez vue ?" asked our waitress after we sat down at Les Bouquinistes. My dining companions and I looked outside, into the inscrutable and slightly drizzly evening. The sudden appearance of a swarm of paparazzi, circling the building like giant fireflies, gave credence to her claim. "Really?" I wanted to ask. "Did she bring her career with her? Because she seems to have left it somewhere equally hard to spot." Besides, we had already found our star that night and it was food. Les Bouquinistes , Ze Kitchen Galerie 's neighbor, is breathtaking at night. The Seine is right in front, lit up and glorious, Notre Dame is in the distance overseeing the night's activities on the Left Bank. It was Fashion Week in Paris, which made the appearance of a celebrity logical, though her appearance in the restaurant next door was a mystery worthy of Poirot. Les Bouquinistes is Guy Savoy's more "affordable" o...