Among the many places to eat and historic restaurants of Milan is the restaurant Bagutta, in the San Babila area of Milan, not far from the Duomo. With so much fashion food, VIP restaurants and new fads in Milan, on going to this restaurant any adjectives like “funky” or “trendy” become superfluous. It’s difficult to translate in a few lines the history of a restaurant, but here we give you some idea of this historic Milanese restaurant.

The Bagutta was an “osteria” back in 1924, when you ate well and spent little. It became the favourite den of writers, poets and young talents from the world of art and literature, who didn’t spend much but shared plenty of ideas. It was frequented by journalists such as Orio Vergani and Paolo Monelli, writers like Riccardo Bachelli and artists such as Mario Vellani Marchi.

The “Baguttiano” dinner group discussed letters and literature between their courses. It was thus that the idea of Italy’s first literature prize, the “premio letterario Bagutta” or “Bagutta Prize”, was born in 1927; the idea came from Orio Vergani and became a source of pride for the restaurant and its owners, the Pepori family, over the years.

Continue reading: Historic restaurants in Milan: the Bagutta Trattoria

For a great restaurant in Rome with a good wine list, look to Giuda Ballerino! in Largo Appio Claudio, 344. The name of the restaurant is inspired by the classic exclamation from the comic book character Dylan Dog, and if your dinner companion can pay the bill, better still as the exclamation could take on additional meaning.

Leaving aside discussions of money, if you’re happy to spend a little extra, this restaurant is an osteria, wine bar, caffetteria and enoteca (or wine shop) all in one. Small but welcoming, the menu is tempting in its offering with prices appropriate for this style of restaurant.

One example of a dish is the lamb rack with caramellised endives and Tropea onions with blackberry sauce, washed down with a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. The adventurous tastes and interesting wine list recommends this Rome restaurant.

Continue reading: Restaurants in Rome: Giuda ballerino!

In Venice you will find many dark and hidden bars that as a tourist you might not be game enough to enter. But often these seemingly uninviting places are Venice’s best kept secret. The “Bacari” are bars were you eat and drink standing up, but that often serve local delicacies and wine at cheap prices.

While in Venetian dialect, the site Venessia.com includes a lot of information on Venice, not for tourists, among which you can find Venice’s best bars (and we’re not talking Harry’s Bar). Bar advice includes visiting Al Bagolo in Campo San Giacomo for the music and people, S.Marcuola “Enoteca Do Colonne” for the good snacks and nice baristas, Ai Bisatei in Campo San Bernardo a Murano where for 12 euros you can get good happy hour food, and the “Cantina da Roberto” At Cannaregio where the wine is good, the snacks even better, but apparently “solo per Veneziani”: only for Venetians!

The term “bacaro” comes from an old word referring to the wine makers who once came to Venice with barrels of wine to sell in St Mark’s square, together with some snacks. The glass the wine was served in was called “ombra”, meaning shade, because the wine makers used to follow the shade from the bell tower. moving their stalls around the square, to protect the wine from the sun.

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Continue reading: Tour of Venice bars: the best bars and happy hour in Venice, but not for tourists...

New York Times writer Matt Gross is not silly - on looking for cheap eats in Milan, he bypassed the restaurants and went straight to the great cocktail bars of Italy, serving aperitifs for a set price with unending buffets of free food.

This is not news for Italians, who have been indulging in “happy hour” for years. The indulging is more like dining for many, as buying one Italian drink gives you access to a vast buffet that can include pasta dishes, rice salads, canapes and much more.

Happy hour in Milan, or aperitif time, has become a pillar of Milanese society, and where you go, what you order and who you go with is a microscopic indication of your “milanesità”. Whether the trend will take off in New York or not doesn’t matter - you can always enjoy it on your holiday to Italy.

To check out the bars in Milan, see Obika mozzarella bar, Da Claudio restaurant-cocktail bar or Milanese institution Pasticceria Cucchi where by day you get Italian pastries, and by night enjoy drinks and cocktails.

In terms of trying some classic Italian drinks and cocktails, we recommend the negroni, negroni sbagliato, aperol spritz, a prosecco, or Bellini or Rossini cocktail, or even an Italian beer. As the article says, “aperitivo is the best!”.

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Continue reading: Life in Italy: happy hour in Milan and Italian cocktail recipes

If you want to eat like the Romans do, while spending less, the Quagliaro restaurant in Rome, at largo Mola di Bari has the perfect option. This restaurant has a lot of food for the price, a rarity when trying to find cheap restaurants in Rome, though the quality perhaps leaves a little to be desired.

When asking for a menu or special of the day and receiving a threatening glare from the host, Tiberio, you spend only seven euros and you have a full meal, with simple dishes and a host with a real roman name.

A speciality is quail with mushrooms, or pizzas for only three euros (if ordering a margherita) though they’re perhaps best avoided. We recommend this restaurant for any backpacker who is tired of their backpacking companion and wants to have one of those arguments where you finally get rid of the person you thought you were going to travel with for the next six months of your life.

Apart from that, at the Quagliaro, the food is more or less edible, but the atmosphere is one of times gone by, that you just don’t get in a city where Romans by the name of Tiberio with threatening stares are becoming scarcer.

Continue reading: Cheap eats in Rome: do as the Romans do and eat at Quagliaro restaurant

The restaurant at the Fortezza Medicea di Volte is one of the strangest restaurants in the world, and certainly for Italy, which has it’s fair share of unique Italian restaurants. But it’s not strange just because it’s in a fortress, but especially because this is still a state prison and the waiters serving you are the current inmates.

Travel + Leisure says it’s harder to book a meal here than at the “Masa” restaurant in New York. The fortress restaurant is in Tuscany, in Volterra and is part of the fortress that overlooks the town. The building is divided into the old and “new” parts, with the latter being constructed in the 15th century by Lorenzo il Magnifico.

Dining at the fortress restaurant is one of the few opportunities you will have to see the fortress from the inside and Il Turista.Info reports that high security measures are in place. Despite the plastic cutlery though, apparently the service and food quality is very good. It looks like the Italians will do anything for tourism!

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Continue reading: Italian restaurants: eating in Tuscany at the fort of Fortezza Medicea di Volte, Italy's strangest restaurant

If you can read Italian and you love all things to do with traditional Italian cooking, the book Mangiarozzo could be perfect for you. It’s a giude to the taverns and trattoria of Italy, evaluating their quality not by labels, but “by the fork”.

The author, Carlo Cambi, is the founder of “I viaggi di Repubblica” and president of the wine trails Arezzo. He wrote the book to generate good food culture, to celebrate the cooks of traditional Italian cuisine, often snubbed by the more prestigious food guides. Cambi is also about celebrating the link between agriculture and flavours, while offering readers a selection of places where you can eat in Italy, while spending the right amount.

The taverns appearing in Mangiarozzo are selected on the basis of criteria such as the relevance of the traditional cooking, family management style and reasonable prices. The book includes no ranking system of stars, forks or hats, and proposes a culinary tour of Italy, visiting the places featured.

The book costs 20 euros and includes 800 pages of where to eat in Italy.

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Continue reading: Guide to Italian restaurants: "Mangiarozzo" features cheap trattorie in Italy

This is not Italy’s biggest news of the century, but it’s curious enough to warrant a mention. In Milan’s via Spallanzani a record of the biggest steak in the world has been made. Achieved by Butchers for children”, the record is of a steak measuring 24.8 square metres.

The street was completely filled with butchers’ stalls and Italian meat delicacies. To take part and eat something, the cost was eight euros for a bracelet, with proceeds going to charity. While we didn’t see the mega steak, there were plenty of other good Italian meat dishes to try.

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Continue reading: The world's biggest steak: world record achieved in Milan

If you happen to be passing through the Val Trebbia, you should take a moment to stop at the Due Ponti restaurant, or if you prefer you can stay there, as it’s also a hotel.

The Val Trebbia is a valley that sits in the Apennine mountains between Liguria and Emilia Romagna. While in this case the restaurant is technically in Liguria, the cuisine is influenced by Emilian dishes and traditions.

The menu is delicious, and is related by the head waiter. You generally start with an antipasto with Italian salami from the area, including wild boar bresaola and coppa, lard and pancetta with poppy seeds. You can also try the caponata which is a chesse antipasto including rose petals and steamed beans.

Continue reading: Italian restaurants: "Due Ponti" in Val Trebbia in the Appennine range

The comedy event “All’ombra del Colosseo”, or “In the shadow of the colosseum”, is returning to Rome, to the L’Hostaria Food and Fashion restaurant in Rome’s Parco del Celio.

The event combines comedy with some great food in Rome, where you can eat well and enjoy a unique atmosphere: cabaret. Even if you don’t understand everything, it would be well worth it just to say you went to cabaret in Rome.

The menu has been designed like a game, colour coordinated, with each colour representing a typical Mediterranean dish. If you’re a Gambero Rosso, or Slow Food member, you can discounted season tickets to the 2008 event.

If anyone has the courage to try this out, we’d be interested in hearing the results.

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Continue reading: Rome: in the shdaow of the Colosseum, food and cabaret

The guys over at 06blog have tried out a new restaurant in Rome, Urbana 47, which seems to be quite fashionable at the moment.

Starting with the menu, two antipasti were tried - a potato and zucchini quiche, and croutons with anchovy paste and cheese. They were perhaps a little bland, with not enough paste on the croutons, but okay as an appetiser.

For entrees, the tagliolini pasta (a bit like linguini) with cheese, pepper and zucchini flowers is definitely worth trying, while for mains the grilled tuna fillet was not a bad choice either. Desserts included coffee semifreddo, and the panna cotta with shaved chocolate was excellent.

Urbana 47 gets a vote of 7.5 or eight out of ten. The menu doesn’t give much indication though, as it changes on the basis of what’s in season at the time. A great initiative, and something that Italians definitely need get into more, is Sunday brunch for around 15 euros.

The restaurant has a unique aspect in that the menu favours organic ingredients, purchased directly from producers. The interior of the restaurant is really interesting, and it’s all produced by Zoc, a shop on Via delle Zoccolette 22. With a mix of a rustic style including leather lounges, the restaurant also has a modern touch with visibile tubing across the roof and metal features around the walls. Try it out at Urbana 47, via Urbana 47, Monti. Tel: 0647884006.

Continue reading: Rome restuarants: eating out at Urbana 47

If you’re looking for a restaurant in Rome, we can recommend Primo, in the Pigneto quarter of Rome, an area famous for its nightlife. The food is well done and the products are all of a high quality, excellent choice.

The interior is well looked after with a white and minimalist theme. You can start with an appetiser on the house, for example fried anchovies, stuffed with mint.

The cuisine from chef Marco Gallotta starts with traditional dishes, and is lighter in its use of fats and cooking. It’s a simple style that focuses on keeping the intensity of the original taste of a dish’s ingredients.

Continue reading: Restaurants in Rome: Primo in the Pigneto district