Valgiano
Valgiano is a little speck in the hills of north western Tuscany.
Our AirBnB was a restored, rustic farmhouse. The home is on an olive farm, Forestarìa, which produces small batches of olive oil locally. Valgiano is very small town and is only home to a handful of restaurants and biodynamic wineries, most of which run small scale production. What is made here, for the most part, stays here.
We decided 98° was the perfect condition for a 45 minute hike home from a winery. Somehow we ended up following the wrong path and got lost in the maze of olive trees. We hopped a fence. We hiked up and down (and back up) towering hills. We trekked through spikes vines. Eventually, hopping another fence and walking a winding road home. 2 hours later.
Up the hill from our home was the most amazing little, family run restaurant. If you were lucky to get a seat near the kitchen, you could see watch them yell back and forth at each other, as the chef pops out to hand you brown paper bags of fresh baked bread. But the best seats are in the small garden outside, with just enough room for 20 or so people.
It’s a set menu. You eat whatever they feel like cooking that day. We went back three times.
There are only two groups of seatings per night. The dinner lasts hours. Food and wine are brought to your table endlessly. Top it all off with a shot of grappa.
Our host taught us to cook a dish that was very typical to Valgiano—chicken sautéed in lots of sage and thyme, with lemon, olive oil, and white wine. We stuffedsheets of home made pasta dough with tiny little pillows of ricotta, nutmeg, and spinach. We marinated tomatoes for bruschetta. And to top it all of, we made fresh panna cotta, which might have just become my new favorite dessert to make.
