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Trip Report II: Food
This was not one our better eating trips. Food is shockingly expensive in Italian. We had very few full and satisfying meals because it would have been very expensive to order the full run of primi, secondi and side, wine, desert. Also we did not eat any real sit down lunches because there is no way that I am prepared to drop $30-40 a couple for lunch.
One of our best meals was wine, cheese and prosciutto that we picked up at the market in Florence. We also had a dinner on the train back from Venice to Florence, eating cheese that we had picked up in a supermarket in Venice. I can report that Italian supermarket cheese is no better than American supermarket cheese. Anyway, here was our eating scaled by the WETAI ("Would Eat There Again Index.") Florence Za Za (recommended by Spiral Guides. Near the market). Our favorite restaurant by far. The food was the best we had and the price reasonable by Italian standards because the secondi comes with a side, usually fried potatoes and marvelous marinated peppers. An appetizer, two secondi and wine was more food than we could eat for about 40E. We ate there twice. The first night we split a great tomato bruschetta, my wife had salmon in caper sauce and I had a seafood skewer. All excellent. The next night we had this great calamari crostini, a good chicken dish and I had ok, but not great veal. WETAI=8.5. Trattoria la Burrasca (recommended by Rick Steves. Near the market). This place was an atrocity. I won't even go into the details. WETAI=0 Trattoria Casalinga (recommended by many guidebooks. Oltra Arno) For all the praise this place gets as a good inexpensive restaurant, we found the food substandard and the price not all that cheap. We started with a poor chicken liver crostini. My wife ordered something that her Berlitz book translated as stew but it was a thin, blah piece of meat covered with equally blah tomato sauce. I had veal scallopini limon, which was very good, but tiny. The portions were so small, that you would have to order appetizer, primi and secondi to make up a meal. By then, it is hardly cheap. The wine was the lowest quality of the trip. WETAI=2 Assisi Locanda del Podesta (recommended by Rick Steves. Near the basilica) Ricky recommended the lamb chops and the sausage. The lamb chops were indeed outstanding. The sausage was a single, small, dried out piece of blandness for 6E. My primi was spaghetti pomodoro that I found unpleasantly acidic. WETAI=8 for the lamb chops, 4 for everything else. Rome Cavour313 (recommended as Fodor's choice. Near Piazza Venezia) It was supposed to be a great place to sample wine. They have lots of bottles, but there isn't much choice by the glass: there were only 4 choices of red and 4 of white. The food was good, however. We had very nice smoked trout with horseradish and a Calabrian food platter that has turned me into a Calabrian foodie. The cheese plate was merely OK and a bit disappointing by Italian cheese standards. WETHAI=7.5 Fraterna Domus (hotel. Near Piazza Navona) We stayed there, and they serve simple but cheap dinners, so we gave it a try. Soup was fine (pasta is an alternative) and the main was very pleasant grilled pork cutlet. Desert was fruit. Yes, they include wine. There was some other stuff, but I don't recall exactly what. Anyway, a real bargain at 12E. You don't have to be a guest to eat there. Reservations required. WETHAI=10 if you want cheap, 6.5 if you want good. Reservations required Pizzeria Da Baffetto II (recommended by many guidebooks. Near Campo Di Fiore). We stumbled on to this new branch of the famous pizza place. It is just around the corner from the Campo Di Fiore and gives you do have a cheap, outdoor mean essentially eat on the Camp. We had pizza (what else) and antipasto. It was far from the best pizza we had in Italy, but it was still very good. The antipasto was OK. WETHAI=8.5. Siena Castelvecchio (recommended by Frommers. Near the Camp - but hard to find.) The food was what might be termed Italian Neuvo. I started with an excellent plate of assorted crostini and followed with pork in fruit sauce. My wife had an excellent seafood risotto that came with an approving smile from the owner that a wise choice had been made. The food was good, the portions very small and the price moderate by Italian standards. WETHAI=7. Venice La Piscina (At hotel La Calcina. Dusoduro) The hotel offers a 20E "light" dinner to hotel guests. It sounded good since we could eat on a dock out on the water. Sounded better when we discovered that the same meal ordered separately was 30E. It rained and we had to eat inside, still with a nice view of the lagoon. You chose a salad primi and pasta secondi. My salad was mostly lettuce with a lot of prosciutto. My secondi was a disappointing pesto pasta but my wife's ricotta stuffed ravioli was very good. The deserts were average, mine was ice cream and my wife's was fruit and cream. WETAI=8 if you can eat out on the water, 6.5 if you eat inside. Unnamed Self-service of San Bartolomeo Near Rialto.) We wanted to do a cichetti tour, but couldn't find any of the places recommended by guidebooks. We spent a half hour futilely looking for looking for Bancogiro and then a place recommended by Rick Steves in San Barlolomeo. We finally gave up and ate at a self-serve right off the square in a little alley. We had had seafood lasagna, vegetable soup, grilled calamari and a shrimp sandwich (plus wine, of course.) The seafood lasagna was good and the rest so-so. 30E. WETAI=4.5 Food bests from our trip: Restaurant - Za Za by a mile. Best gelato - nameless place in Campo Santa Margherita (Venice) Best wine - Enoteca Ialiana at the fortezza(Siena) Best pastries - Residenza Cellini's breakfast (Rome) Best sweetie - chocolate panforte at Nannini's (Siena) Best mineral water - Residenza Johlea (Florence) |
Hi M,
Well at least you had two good meals. |
When I was planning my trip for my two teenagers and I, I was a little taken aback by what it might cost to eat in Italy. For us, a splurge is a $40 meal 3. In Italy, if we kept it under $50 for 3 of us we were doing well. (and we atually did have several good lunches for under 40E..you have to get away from the tourist spots)
W e ended up paying between 45 and 70 E for 3 for dinners, but it could have been cheaper if we'd chosen to forgo antipasti or dolce but we just couldn't - it was all so good. Meals for us took on event status, we would wait to go out later, read guide books, walk around past places to decide, discuss the menu...We had some wonderful meals, just a few bad meals. One last evening we threw caution to the wind and had everything all the way to cafe and chicolate at the end at Tratoria San Toma. it 95 E for 3, which was relatively inexpensive (for Venice) and the kids agreed was just as much a Venetion experience as our 100 E gondola ride, but a better bargain. My advice would be to budget for higher meals, get some good guide books like Sandra Gustufson's "Great Eats in Italy" and "Chow Venice" and consider it part of the experience. The only downside is ever getting my kids to think Applebees is a treat again. joelle |
"food is shockingly expensive in Italian"
I guess you meant to say Italy, But where are your examples of that? Where do you live? Do you only drink wine with meals in Italy because you can't get lunch with wine here in California for $35-$45 with 2 or 3 courses, let alone dinner. |
That was my thought too, about the price mentioned for lunch. If I eat lunch at a restaurant here in Seattle with a glass or two of wine it would certainly be at least $20-25 per person. That's not to say that the family posting should have done so if they aren't comfortable with the price, but only that I don't think it's really fair to blame Italy as wildly expensive because you don't want to spend $40 for 2 people to have a nice meal.
I do appreciate all travel logs and don't mean to seem critical. Besides the specific restaurant reviews, this might help other families realize what they may find and possibly adjust their budget or expectations accordingly. |
I was kind of surprised how expensive meals were too. (And I live in SF). It didn't seem so expensive looking at the menu, but when I got home and looked at my statements they were more than I had thought. I was reading someone's trip report here and was surprised how cheaply they seemed to eat.
Re: Baffata, I kept meaning to go to the original one on Governo Vecchio because I heard several times it was the best pizza in Italy. But the line outside was always really long. |
metellus, $30 a couple is inexpensive compared to here in Boston. I rarely have lunch out with my girlfriends because I don't eat fast foods and lunch with two glasses of wine is easily $35.
I'm glad you had a decent time, anyway. I know I've have had better meals in Italy and France for the cost compared to here. |
1. I have been to so many places inside the US and abroad in Europe and a good meal can be expensive everywhere...especially when you add alcohol.
2. Italy was far from expensive for food -- try going to London. We ate like kings in Italy, had nice size portions and drank alcohol with every dinner. Our bills were around 50 euros per night for two to three hours of dining. Plus you must consider that this price also include coperto or as we call it tip. I come from NYC where you must add 15% to 20% to your final bill for the waiter and service which would bring your 40 dollar meal (20 dollars each) to around 50 dollars anyway (46 to 48 to be exact). 3. You cannot compare the level of service you receive in Italy. You are treated with respect and the waiters/waitresses have personality...plus the food quality! I am getting hungry thinking about it. 4. As for lunch, stop in any of the little stores and grab a quick sandwich or pizza and you are talking 7 to 8 euros for two people. If you plan to sit down add the coperto and it becomes a bit more pricey. 5. Finally, the only thing that troubled me was when in Positano my wife and I ordered a small pizza for lunch. If we wanted to sit down it cost a lot more than to take it to go. So we took the pizza to the room, sat on our beautiful balcony and ate. |
"Message: 1. I have been to so many places inside the US and abroad in Europe and a good meal can be expensive everywhere...especially when you add alcohol."
I'm not talking about a good meal. I'm just taking about eating. You want to go to a fancy place, it's a lot more. Most restaurants cost the same for lunch as they do for dinner, which is onereason that they are so expensive for midday meal. Maybe some people think that spending $40 for lunch everyday for 2 weeks isn't a major expense. You must be in a different income bracket. Oh, yeah, and I wasn't including wine. I don't drink until during the day. I saw no evidence that overall food quality was better when you consider the cost. In fact, that's one reason that we didn't do any major splurges. If we want to spend $120 (100E) for dinner, we can do a lot better at home. There was one anomaly, however. Chinese restaurants were incredibly cheap compared to everything else. We didn't eat in any, but if you want to eat cheap in Italy, they might be worth a try for the odd meal. "You cannot compare the level of service you receive in Italy." People were friendly but the service wasn't anything out of the ordinary as far as well could see. " I come from NYC" Ah hah! People who live in NYC and California are living in the most expensive places in the US. Those of us mortals who live in more mundane places, and that's the vast nmajority of people, aren't use to $40 lunches and $120 dinners. |
I'm liking Baltimore better and better.
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And what mundane place(as you stated) might that be where you are from?
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No wonder you had trouble in Italy you cannot read. I did not say anything about spending 40 dollars on lunch and 120 dollars on dinner. Read my post again!!! I said we spent 50 Euros per night on dinner and around 7 to 8 euros for lunch. Did you use fuzzy math to come up with your calculations?
What planet do you come from? I am an earthling! |
I almost forgot. Where did you find the "chinese" restaurants in Italy? Are you sure you were in "Italy" or as you call it "Italian"? I really do not remember seeing a "chinese" restaurant in Florence, Rome, Siena or Amalfi -- Positano.
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My gosh, Metellus was kind enough to give a run down of all the restaurants he tried. He made a simple comment that he found Italy expensive as far as meals go (frankly, as I said, so did I). Why is everyone jumping all over him? That will sure teach him to do a trip report!
For the record, I saw Chinese restaurants in Rome and Florence. I didn't look in Amalfi, Positano or Siena. |
I have always found eating out in Italy quite reasonable in price.
However, I've also found eating and accommodation in the US incredibly cheap. There was a place in NY where you could eat all you liked for the equivalent of five pounds. Frankly I find this worrying. In order for food to be this cheap, how are the animals kept? How much are farmers being paid, not to mention farm workers? How much are they paying waiter/esses? No wonder the poor souls need those huge tips. |
I dunno, but I kinda took metellus' commment "food is shockingly expensive" to be on the lines of 'it's frightfully cold out today.' Meaning it's not really a debatable point, since it is implicitly understood to be the speaker's own emotional perception of events.
However, I've no qualms with criticism provided it takes us all somewhere. Metellus hints at a valid point - ideally, costs have to be evaluated in a way that is independent of where any of us come from, since of course we all hail from different places. Would it work to express meal cost as a percentage of the local cost of a given category of hotel room? And how should we categorize food - should Chinese takeout be the equivalent of a one star hotel? |
We had the best Chinse food we ever had in Venice. La Perla D'Oriente. What I thought was interesting was that the menu is listed and served Italian style. So we ordered fried noodles (like chow main) and a main dish and the noodles came first the way a pasta primo would.
39 E for 3, including anitipasti -(spring rolls), noodles, main dish, wine and pop. And "inexpensive" or "expensive" are relative terms. So it's kind of silly to argue about what is and is not expensive. Joelle |
What strikes me as odd about this trip report/restaurant-food-critique is...why did metellus bother? Other than "remember to ignore Rick Steves," is anything he offered really worth noting? Or, was this just an opportunity to fantasize and/or vent?
It seems to me many people have the burgeoning desire to be Craig Claiborne, Gael Greene, and/or Tim and Nina Zagat, and certainly here on Travel Talk you do get your chance at playing Ebert ((N)). However, a food report like this begs the questions: 1. Why would anyone take food or restaurant advice from an untested stranger, especially a stranger who lives in a mundane place? (Does anybody know how difficult it is to get fresh Italian basil in Ohio?) 2. Why would anyone take food and restaurant advice from someone who writes with no apparent love for the subject? 3. Why would anyone take food or restaurant advice from someone so preoccupied with (low) cost? It seems every average, but reputable, food/restaurant critic, worth his/her sea-salt, knows that quality ingredients typically cost more, even if we're simply talking fresh versus non-fresh. I can't be the only critic who can taste the difference between butter and margarine, table salt and kosher salt, refined sugar and raw sugar, instant coffee and espresso bean, domestic prosciutto and imported, Häagen-Dazs and Sealtest, and the list goes on and on and on. Yet, metellus went on to include his own rating code? Me thinks metellus thinks more of his own opinion than most anyone else will (as evidenced by some of the replies). Everyone is entitled to his/her own fantasy, I guess. If we don't know the quality of the taste buds of the writer, or anything about the writer's food-tasting experiences, how can we possibly discern his/her comment's worth? We can't. Some of my overweight cousins back in Ohio insist that Cool Whip tastes better than real whipped cream. And, <b>don't you dare suggest they aren't great cooks or don't know great tasting food</b>. After all, cooking and eating <b>is</b> their favorite pastime. Does this mean I want their restaurant recommendations in Ohio? No, thank you. Metellus did get the "expensive" issue right and I think every restaurant owner in Italy would agree with him, and with sad reluctance. The days of getting a terrific three-course meal in Italy, including a very good glass of wine, for a mere $15 are long gone and those days aren't likely to ever return. One can look at the surge in tourism over the past 20 years for some of the blame but the most important reason is the Euro. And, in order to understand the effect the Euro has had on small businesses in Italy, one would have to sit down with a smart, small business owner in Italy and enjoy a nice, long conversation. This does not mean decent, low-cost food is impossible to find, even in the bigger cities, but it does require more comprehensive research and utilizing a discerning choice of sources. Too bad Trattoria La Casalinga never asked for its fairly recent fame. Before the "chic" guidebooks discovered this little jewel, she was a classic Florence trattoria packing in locals, day after day. La Casalinga wasn't interested in massive tourist business. They were perfectly content with those few tourists who sought this precious place out because of "in-the-know" word of mouth. Today, they are flooded with thousands of demanding tourists who are desperate to experience that elusive Florentine magic known as "authenticity," which can barely exist once any "local" place is discovered. For decent service now, it helps greatly if you are a regular from before the guidebook discovery and you speak some decent Italian. Otherwise, you go at your own risk. I have never had a bad meal there and it's one of the few places you can get good, old-fashioned home cooking in Florence. This isn't Cibreo and nor does it pretend to be. Too bad metellus didn't know about Brek Ristoranti in Cannaregio (http://www.brek.com/eng/index.html) where some home-made, cafeteria style cooking (some of it pretty damn tasty) comes to you freshly made and for a mere couple of Euro. I hear you can get dinner, which can include a generous helping of chicken marsala and a generous side of <i>risotto con radicchio di Treviso</i> and a beverage for a whopping 6.30 Euro. This is a great place for a family on a budget in Venice. They serve pizza, too. Too bad metellus didn't know about Luigi Puntar's "Gino's," also in Cannaregio. Most tourists foolishly believe everything they read about those awful, rip-off restaurants who flagrantly post a "tourist menu" at their front door, never to realize that some of them are honest and decent places for tourists to eat well and without fear of language barrier and/or breaking the bank. I've known the Puntar family for years and they're famous in their native Cannaregio, primarily due to their successful, veteran business reputation. Half the relatives live in North Eastern USA and all of them travel back and forth fairly often. The Venetian Puntars adore their tourist business because they understand how it feels to be foreign in a foreign land, which is why they post that "awful" sign proudly at the front door and write "We want you to always feel welcome" on each and every menu. They don't pretend to be anything fancy or cater to the culinary elite. All they care about is feeding the hungry and making the tourist feel comfortable and at home, and they've been doing it successfully for many, many years. The menu offers a little bit of everything, including twelve choices of beer, five variations of penne and eight versions of salad but, Gino's is mostly famous for their pizza. A large, tasty pizza Amatriciana, covered with brie, arugula, artichokes, and truffles (more $) and served with a coca-cola will set you back 13.50 Euro. For something a bit more up-scale (but still affordable) visit Luigi's "Pedrocchi" in Campo San Geremia. Too bad metellus didn't know about Il Paradiso Perduto, where you can enjoy a very tasty lasagne and a fabulous grilled <i>insalata mista</i> for another whopping 13.50 Euro. Too bad metellus didn't work his way to Vino Vino, where he could have enjoyed a wonderful three-course selection of cicheti, three glasses of terrific wine, and a bottle of water for the very steep price of 23 Euro. Even at Trattoria San Toma, with their famous selection of delicious pastas or their proscuitto/arugula pizza, it's very easy to dine here for under 20 Euro. The secret to finding good, cheap eats in NYC is you have to know where to go, and you'll be hard pressed to find many of these places in NYC guidebooks (although Zagats is pretty comprehensive). You practically have to know someone from each and every neighborhood and find out their favorite dish. The same is true in Italy. |
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NYFS: I read with interest your paragraph on Trattoria La Casalinga. I "discovered" it in the early 1980s when a friend and I were at a bar near the Pitti Palace and asked the busboy who replenished our olive dish "where do you eat?" He told us "La Casalinga" and pointed the way. I'll never forget that first meal: penne arrabbiata, roast chicken to dream about with crisp , slightly salty skin covering the moist and tender meat and potatoes, perfectly roasted with garlic and rosemary. The service was great and friendly and the whole place had a comfortable, convivial atmosphere.Iwent back a couple of years later. At that time, it had made it into a couple of guide books. The food was fine, but due to the line at the door, the service a bit rushed. Then, a few years after that, when it was in all the guidebooks, my husband and I stopped in for lunch. A tour group was shoved into one corner of the restaurant, the rest of the patrons were all tourists, and the food, what we got since they forgot half of our order, was abysmal. The owners didn't seem to enjoy the popularity of their business, they screamed at each other and the staff the whole time. To me, the best meals aren't usually found in guidebooks now.
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