TTI Restaurant Guide

The Turrite Cava valley is an incredible microcosm of restaurants with great fresh food and low prices you wouldn't believe. It's almost cheaper to eat out every night than to go to the local supermarket and buy your own food. A typical three-course meal with wine should cost around 12 Euros per head (possibly up to 20 Euros if you splurge).

If you are a vegetarian, you need to be aware that the locals will secretly consider you completely mad and will feel very sorry that you are unable to enjoy their passion for delicious animal products of all kinds. Don't worry about this. Following several years of TTI activities, they are now used to us bringing curious foreigners to their restaurants and most are now able to supply vegetarian meals of some kind.

Note that most restaurants do not have menus, but the waitress will recite a short list of possibilities for each course (which depends on whatever they have in the refrigerator that day). A reasonable grasp of 'restaurant Italian' is therefore recommended.

In Italy, there are four courses :

• antipasti - lots of little things to start with - ham, salamis, cheeses, onions, little vegetable tarts, dippy stuff, polenta, bread
• primi - pasta dish or risotto
• secondi - main course. Meat or fish. They usually don't come with anything. You need to order contorni (side dishes) separately.
• dolci - dessert.

followed by café and limoncello, grappa or similar.

Most foreign people choose to have either antipasti or primi rather than both. Pizza (always from a wood-fired oven, and delicious) can replace the main course.

You should usually drink house red wine (which is good local earthy robust stuff) or beer (birrà media = decent-sized glass of beer.)

Reservations are recommended, though only really necessary on Saturday nights or festivals. The business cards with telephone numbers of large numbers of local restaurants are stuck to the wall above the washing machine in the Institute.

Note that all restaurants have to close one day a week by law.

For a short stay we recommend the following local restaurants:

• Da Sandra (0583 761712 or 3403730040 on the road between Fabbriche di Vallico and Vallico Sotto).
  A local institution run by matriarch Sandra and her extended family. When you sit down you will immediately be offered antipasti. Say yes and they will arrive immediately. Closed Thursdays (and Mondays in winter).
• La Baracca del Canapale (0583 761829, Vallico Sopra)
  Run as a cooperative by the inhabitants of Vallico Sopra. Very local and welcoming. For most of the year this is in a building in the centre of the village, but in July and August they move the whole operation to an open-air tent a few hundred yards past Vallico Sopra on the road going up to San Luigi. Open Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday lunchtime and evening for most of the year, but in July/August they are open all week except one day which I can't remember..
• Al Laghetto (0583 75798, near the lake at the entrance to the Turritecava valley)
  Great for roast meats and pizza. Great dining room and setting. Closed Mondays.
• La Rondine (0583 761751 Fabbriche di Vallico)
  Very friendly local in Fabbriche. Open Fri evening, plus all day Sat/Sun)
• Alta Matanna (0584 776005, Matanna)
  Incredible former hunting lodge and posh hotel (at least in the nineteenth century) in amazing setting at end of Turritecava valley. Difficult to find but worth it after a hard days hill walking.
• Mulino Biologico (3280 707037, Fabbriche di Vallico)
  Our favourite restaurant in the restored old chestnut mill four hundred yards upriver from Fabbriche di Vallico. Sadly this closed in Winter 2008. Olga the former proprietor assures me that it is probable someone will reopen it. I really do hope so.
• Ristorante Rita e Rinaldo (0583 357728 or 333-6126029, Focchia)
  Hard to find. Drive past Fabbriche di Vallico to Gragliana and turn left over the bridge. Go up the hill till you get to the church on the ridge (don't say the name of the village in an Irish accent). Park the car, and follow the old wooden Ristorante sign to the centre of the village. Friendly very local place run by Rita and Ronaldo for forty years or thereabouts. Simple tasty food. Can cater for 150 on request.

As a last resort:

• La Fontana (0583 761952, Fabbriche di Vallico, closed Wednesdays)
  Neapolitan owner who seems to double prices for foreigners. Indifferent food. However it open 6 days a week unlike La Rondine.

There are also a nice local restaurants in Palagnana which we (amazingly) have never been to. All reports gratefully received.

The following restaurants are slightly further afield (i.e. out of the Turritecava valley). Phone numbers and addresses on the business cards near the Institute washing machine.

• Il Totto, Sassi (0583 760061)
• Il Rondone, Vergemoli, near the Grotta del Vento (0583 722018)
• Il Tinello, Fornovolasco, near the Grotta del Vento (0583 722027)
• Circolo dei Forestieri, Bagni di Lucca
• Quadrifoglio, on the main Gallicano to Lucca road near the Calavorno bridge. Excellent food!
• Antica Trattoria dell'Eremita, on the road from Gallicano towards Fornovolasco. Climb upwards as soon as you see the giant cliff and the white hermitage perched precariously underneath it.
• Il Garfagnino, on the main road near Turritecava
• Eliseo, in Gallicano (0583 74031)
• Da Riccardo in Barga
• Loads of others

The best restaurant in the area is probably La Mora in Ponte a Moriano which is two-star Michelin quality, but I can't afford to eat there.