Al Ritrovo Bibbiena

The restaurant is not a large place - and the main portions is in a tented area right infront of the kitchen - but this is also a good point, because you can sit outside catch the light breezes in the summer time and live the small town life on the streets in a quaint little town like Bibbiena.

Though the menu also contains several standard Italian dishes - the cook oftens adds a twist such as the potato filled pasta with butter and truffles, very inviting! The menu also included some basics, which for those of you who are looking for something just a little lighter than normal might enjoy the vegetable soup - just like my mother-in-law makes!

Pizza is served at dinner time only and is well made with a good tastey thin crust. I tasted the Peppery steak stew - and it was worth cleaning the bowl out. Wine can be purchased by the bottle or you can get smaller portions in a carafe - great alternative for those of you traveling in small groups. The house wine is good - you don`t have to order from the list to get a good hearty flavour to accompany your meal.

I know they say their specialty is fish - but I really can`t comment on that because I only tasted the turf menu but if they do the fish like the do the plates I did taste, you can go secure that it will be down with a unique home style flare.

Parking is tough in Bibbiena - you should really look for a place outside of town and walk in. The town is not that big and actually there are lots of cute little shops and beautifully restored historic building to view. To find the restaurant - just walk all the way up to the main square (there is only one) and look up facing the clock. Turn to your left in the far corner and you will find a restaurant with a large white tent in front.


Specialty is Fish

Piazzetta Mario Pierazzuoli, 4

Bibbiena Arezzo

Phone +39 0575 536209

Closed on Thursday

How to make Panzanella

Origins of this dish go back to the sheep herders who while moving the sheep long distances had very little food - and that which was to be had was normally stale bread and the local vegetables found along their trails. This dish makes the best of both ingredients.

Ingredients:

Weights are approximate, this will make enough as a pasta dish for about 3-4 persons.

approx. 2 cups - hard bread - best to use bread with as few base ingredients as possible - flour, yeast, water is the best.
tomato - cut into cubes and take out excess juice and seeds
cucumber - peel and cut into little cubes
iceberg lettus - cleaned and cut into mouth size pieces
onion - cut into small pieces. Though many would want to leave this out, it was probably one of the few veggies that the herders were sure to find along the trail
basil in abundance, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt
Mix salad ingredients and basil together and dress lightly with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar and salt. There is no right or wrong way to dress the salad, it is all done to taste. For example the Italians prefer more oil than vinegar - yet most others go a little heavier on the vinegar. By mixing the salad first with the dressing you don't risk the bread getting too dressed and thus a heavy flavour out of proportion with the rest of the salad.

Cut the bread in 2 - 3 inch cubes and soak the bread until it has absorbed the water (hint: don't let it absorb too much water - just enough that it is damp) - squeeze excess water out and crumb lightly into a bowl. Mix well with salad.

Some variations include adding tuna fish and or white navy beans - however the traditional recipe is very simple.

Serve immediately.

Tuscan Lighting

The sober look that represents Tuscan lighting has nothing to do with what is usually meant as Tuscan lighting.


The Rococo look of some over-worked, over-embellished crystal lamps that you see at some shop bare the style that is much more proper to those parts of Italy that have been exposed to Byzantine culture, such as the North East of Italy, with Venice being the capital of Byzantine art in Italy.

So if you are looking for real Tuscan lighting, look no further than those humble looking lamps that truly represent the traditional character of Tuscany and of Tuscan people in general.

That is not to say that there in anything esthetically wrong with much more elaborated lighting; however if you are looking forward to having a truly Tuscan feeling in your home, set your mind to letting go all the cliches that are usually thought of as truly Tuscan.


In the case of a table or floor lamp, Tuscan lighting is mainly composed of a wooden body and a no-frills shade, or no shade at all. The body of the lamp may be painted with pastel colors, or antique gold or silver paints.

In the case of a ceiling Tuscan lighting, you will be surprised how little you can find to be truly originally Tuscan, since up until the 1960s Tuscan economy was mainly supported by agriculture, and the living conditions in the Tuscan countryside were far from worrying anyone about carving out a great looking ceiling lamp. Most likely, if you were to enter one of those poor houses, you would have seen hanging from the ceiling an anchovy or sardine used to give taste to cornmeal by rubbing it on top of the hung fish. That way it would last much longer.

This is just to give you an idea of what is behind traditional Tuscan lighting. Some richer people surely did have much more elaborated lighting. Some exaples are those of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopoldo, which are characterized by a wooden body with curved movable arms and decorated with achantus leaves. This is as elaborated as it gets.


Of course, contemporary Tuscan lighting has a completely different character.
It is hard to distinguish it from any other contemporary style as everything nowadays is very linear and functional. However, some artisans still create wrung iron lamps and hand carved wooden lamps that remind of the antique Tuscan lighting.