Best place to go in Italy to experience food
 

I'm in the VERY preliminary stages of planning a 2-week trip to Italy in April 2012. My husband and I are in our 30s and would plan to visit the major cities (Venice, Florence, Rome) using a lot of info from this forum. (My husband has never been to Italy, and I have only been once in college where I backpacked quickly through Rome, Florence, and Cinque Terre.)

But we're also huge foodies, and I'm wondering what you think would be the best region to experience food - markets, restaurants, one-day cooking class, olive oil tastings, anything else.

Essentially, we want to spend some time in the countryside, and I had assumed we would do the agriturismo thing in Tuscany with visits to Tuscan hill towns, but now I wonder if there is something better for us if we are focused on food. Or can we get enough great food in the cities, that this shouldn't be the criterion that we use to choose our "country" time?

Thanks for your help!

Bologna is known for its food.

You should no problem eating very well in your planned visit (though Bologna is considered the best eating in Italy by many serious food writers).

Around the world, the best restaurants are usually in (or just outside) cities since it is cities that have the population density and wealth to support them economically. That's why you can eat better in NYC than in Utica.

A few suggestions:
Venice - http://www.hostariadafranz.com/
Florence - http://www.ladecimamusa.it/
Rome - http://www.ristorantesangallo.com/



At any rate, a

Definitely Bologna.

Italy has awesome food almost everywhere -- nothing wrong with Tuscany, for example -- but Bologna takes it to whole 'nother level. Make a day trip to Parma.

I was in Bologna last weekend and I can vouch for the food. It's easily the best I've had in Italy.

Bologna is supposed to hae the best food in Itly - but you can easily get excellent or great food in any sizable city (Venice can be tricky due to huge number of tourists vs small number of locals.)

I would pick the places you really want to see - then find restaurants.

Yeah, what nytraveler said.

You are probably aware that food in Italy is extremely regional, so the food of one region (which can be only a few towns wide) is different from the food in another. Some of it you may love, some of it you may not love, and some of it may seem weird because it isn't a bit like Italian food outside Italy.

The easiest way to show this is to ask what starches dominate the region: pasta, rice, polenta, or grain, e.g., farro.

Most towns have a market day where you can see all kinds of vegetables or cheeses or (in Venice) fish that you may not know, and in many places -- I can only speak for Tuscany here -- there are rotisserie trucks with all sorts of roasted meats and fowl that you can buy to eat in a picnic even if you are staying in a hotel. Under the roasted meats are vegetables, also slowly roasting in the drippings from the meat . . . . Well, I'm starting to drool, but you get the idea.

I would say the fish market in Venice is pretty fantastic, but I would be dumb to say "the fish market in Venice is the best fish market in Italy" because I haven't been to the others.

So don't worry about identifying before you go. Make the discovery the point of your journey.

If in Rome, head out to the Trastevere area for great food.

Thanks for all of your insight and perspective! We're definitely planning to seek out markets and great restaurants no matter where we go, and know that we will find these all over Italy. But I do like the idea of heading to Bologna for some special experiences...though I'm also comforted by the fact that if that does not fit into our itinerary, we will won't be missing the one quintessential Italian eating experience!

Thanks again.

If you are going from Florence to Venice then also consider Ferrara. It is half an hour northeast of Bologna on the train, and is a quiet treasure - - a very easy, pleasant place with great character - - it is flat, and everybody rides bikes (it is fun to rent one, and it helps you see a ton) - - with similarly high culinary standards. For markets (an hour further toward Venice), the one in Padua is gorgeous.

I live in Italy and last fall I spent 2 days a week in Bologna and most people now agree that the days of Bologna being the best food destination in Italy are over. I ate much better on day trips to Parma and Ferrara from Bologna.

I think Napoli has the best food culture in Italy, but Parma is also a revelation. So is Genova, if you are keen to pesto and fish. For a rural experience, rather than go to Tuscany, I suggest you go to Umbria, where food, wine and olive oil are still produced without concessions to tourist expectations.

Unfortunately, your target destinations of Rome, Florence and Venice means you will have to work really hard to avoid bad restaurants. You should do some searches on the website Chowhound for recommendations for these cities, as well as some in-depth discussions over there about how to avoid the popular tourist traps and wrong assumptions that you encounter on tourist message boards. Several professionals post over there, many of whom live in Italy writing about food or are frequent visitors whose main focus is food in Italy.

Thanks for the tips...Umbria seems like a good alternative to Tuscany. And a day trip to Parma seems necessary!

And Chowhound is my other favorite forum, so I will definitely be spending some time researching restaurants there as well.

Thanks again!