Food Lover's Comp: Tuscany

This was the book we used the most in Tuscany. The book provides excellent recommendations on restaurants, wineries, markets, cermamics shops and food shops. It helped make our vacation in Tuscany wonderful.

I have traveled in Tuscany last fall and tried quite a few restaurants, markets, cheese shops and wineries based on this book's recommendations. All were absolutely wonderful. I am greatful to the authors for making this such a great vacation.

This is an essential book for Tuscany travel. Not only are the reviews of restaurants wonderful (and VERY accurate) but all the extra places that are recommended - a wonderful beekeeper in San Gimignano, delightful ceramic shops, a place to buy fresh pasta in Lucca (for both man and dog!), farmers markets, out-of-the-way restaurants in busy "touristy" places like Pisa and Florence; we never left home without it. We found it particularly helpful that directions to locate the place described were provided -- very important when traveling in unfamiliar areas. Although it can be bulky to carry, it's worth it. (I would often copy on to a piece of paper all the things I wanted to see and do in one city and leave the book in the car.) One of the best books we took on our trip - I was absolutely lost when we headed from Tuscany for Liguria!

Having recently enjoyed eight days in Tuscany, quite a bit of it spent chasing after memorable experiences described in this book, I highly recommend it to other food-driven adventurers. It's a bit heavy to tote about (as were the copper pizza pans from the shop in Lucca it led me right to); but we never left a hotel room without it. The layout (for first time visitors) requires a fair bit of cross-referencing until you get the knack of matching towns, descriptions and maps in the book to more detailed roadmaps that you will find to be an essential extra. There are so many worthwhile destinations in such close proximity to each other that it's impossible to see as much as you would wish. But that said, there's not a chance I would otherwise have found Dai Dai frozen desserts, savoured the unusual taste of lardo di Colonnata (or survived the nerve jangling drive there!), nor experienced the simple 'grand tour' pleasure of snacking on a truffle sandwich in such quiet elegance in Florence. My copy of this book, bought almost as an afterthought, just before leaving home, is thoroughly dog-earred and annotated throughout with huge exclamation marks and wistful 'next time's.' Not one comment lead us astray, although we managed to take a few unexpected detours. I only envy the author the obvious time she spent in completing her research.

As someone who lives in Italy, I found this book to give much more thorough and interesting suggestions. Definitely not the same old recommendations you find in all the other guide books. Touches on much more varied and unique foods such as where to find farro (spelt wheat) and organic meats and vegetables.