Finding a restaurant in Italy: Dining Guide Manual

I get it. Figuring out the norms and customs and rules of dining out in a foreign country can be tricky at best. Language for one, but I’ve had to field more than one text from panicked friends traveling in Italy along the lines of, “DO I HAVE TO EAT ALL THE COURSES?” (answer: no).

To ease your culture shock, and heighten your experience, I present, for your very-much-dining-pleasure, my

Definitive Italian Restaurant Manual

How to find a restaurant.
This used to be easy—stroll down a tourist-free street until you found a crowded restaurant with no English on the posted menu. For years, I used this trick to discover the spots that locals gathered for a reliably solid meal. I remember two decades ago, Keith and I ventured just a few blocks away from the duomo in Florence and found a packed osteria with no English on the menu. We hesitated a touch before entering what seemed a different world. I may be making up how the action stopped when we stepped over the threshold. But maybe not. I do remember how we barely spoke, watching people call over our heads while the cook strolled out to sit with diners. Keith and I toasted each other with house wine over an excellent meal, sure that we had won some Italian lottery.
Those Italian-only-hole-in-the-wall restaurants are still fabulous, but nowadays, finding a restaurant without English on the menu is like finding a unicorn, and you’ll waste a lot of time searching. Also, (and more on this later), Americans keep wacky meal hours. Unless you are really acclimated, you’ll find it impossible to not show up for a meal on the early end, before Italians are even thinking of reaching for product to make their hair look effortlessly attractive for their evening out. Therefore, an empty restaurant may just be a sign that you (once again) jumped the gun, rather than you found a dud.
So my suggestion? Go where you are sent. Yes, you can certainly drive yourself crazy comparing on-line reviews, but really what it comes down to is that all restaurants have some amount of hit and miss about them, so the ratings will only tell you so much. Go where your Airbnb host, your friends, your hotel concierge tells you to go. Don’t waste time seeing if that restaurant is truly the best in the area. There is no such thing. Go where you are sent and let yourself be pleasantly surprised.
Understand Timing.
When we got back from living in Italy, I passed our neighborhood tapas joint on my way to the grocery store around 5:00. I stopped short, thinking, “Mas serves lunch?” But, it wasn’t lunch, it was dinner. At 5:00. The horror. Soon enough I reverted to my American ways which means sometimes eating lunch at 11:00 or dinner at 5:30. But if you want a good meal in Italy, you can’t choose a trattoria that caters to tourists. Accommodates them yes, through English on the menu, but if a restaurant serves dinner at 6:00, that’s a sure sign to pass it by. Lunch is 12:30 at the earliest, 1:00 is far more usual. When we went to a masseria in Puglia, we showed up at 12:30 and they had no idea what to do with us. A quick consult with the chef and we got seated, but locals only started filing into the restaurant for their Sunday pranzo at about 1:30.
As for breakfast, don’t plan on eating that out, American style. Breakfast in Italy is a pastry standing in a bar, punto e basta. If you want something else, then seek out lodging that provides breakfast (though check reviews to get an idea of what that breakfast is, often it’s still coffee and a pastry, sometimes with a wedge of packaged cheese. That said, I’ve booked us places to stay purely on the basis of a lauded breakfast, like in Scopello, and been absolutely blown away by homemade orange jams and platters of meats and cheese and jewel-like fruit salad and freshly made yogurt). Alternatively, of course, you can stay in place with a kitchen and hit up the grocery store for yogurt and mozzarella and fruit to stock up your favorite ways to start the day. If you love Italian grocery stores, this is an excellent option.
Now, dinner. I have found, in most of Italy, that 8:00 (20,00 in 24 hour time) to be the ideal time for dinner. Early enough that I can get home with a little time to digest before bed, and late enough that the restaurant isn’t echoing. But, in a pinch, we do 7:30 and deal with the pressure to library our voices because of our conspicuousness in an empty dining room. Never earlier than 7:30. Write that down.
Have no reservations about making reservations.
Depending on where you are, and what season it is, you may need to make a reservation. Bologna, for example, we had to make reservations for each and every meal or we wound up having to elbow our way into a sports bar.
I find it easiest to make reservations in person, by popping into the restaurant (you’ll have to do this when they’re open) and making a reservation for that upcoming meal if there’s space available (“completo” hand written on a sign over the posted menu, or as a response to your query, means the restaurant is full for the upcoming meal), or another meal, if not.
Sure you can have somebody make the reservations for you, but where would be the fun in that? Trust me, make your own and feel like a hero.
Here’s what you say, “Can I make a reservation for…”: “Posso fare una prenotazione per (number of people in your group) per…”
lunch: pranzo
dinner: cena (pronunciation tip, it’s CHAY-na)
today: oggi
tonight: stasera
tomorrow: domani
Now that you’ve asked if you can make a reservation, you’ll either be told no, or you’ll get asked another question. That next question will either be “What time?” (you’ll hear the word ora) or “What’s the name?” (you’ll hear the word nome). Make sure you’ve looked up the time you want, and also times around it, as you may be told that the time you’re asking for won’t work, but another time will. Those are pretty much the extent of the options of the rest of that conversation, and you can totally manage that!
No reservations? No problem. Just duck in and tell them how many you are and ask if there’s a space for you by saying, “Siamo in (insert the number in your party). C’e (pronunciation tip: chay) un posto?”
Posto, by the way is a super handy word. It means all okay (as in tutto a posto, which you might be asked at the end of your meal, to which you can replay, “Si! Ottimo!” to indicate that the meal was fantastic) but it also means space or place.
Sidenote: There is a a certain kind of pleasure in spending a day splashing in the sea and strolling cobblestone streets to peek down hidden alleys and wandering through variegated porticos, all the while knowing there is a seat waiting for you in a restaurant that very evening. Make a reservation.
The Adventure Begins.
Okay, now you’re seated at your table and ready to have a real experience! First things first, you may be asked if you want the English or Italian menu. If you can, go for the Italian menu, or at least get one Italian menu for the table. English translations of Italian foods can be very confusing. Imagine reading: Paste with ham. Sounds awful, right? But pasta con prosciutto is more appetizing. Also, what we think of as ham (like in a sandwich) is called prosciutto cotto or just cotto in Italy, which can show up on an English menu simply as “cooked”. Similarly panna cotta translated into English menus as “cooked cream”. And gnocchi often reads as potato dumplings. Often you’ll see “rocked” on an English menu, which is head-scratching permutation of rocket, which you may well know better as the Italian rucola, which we sounds much closer to what we call in the States, “arugula”.
Next you’ll be asked if you’d like water. Water it in Italy is almost always bottled. You can certainly ask for tap, but frankly I like being able to refill my water whenever, so do as the Romans. You’ll need to specify if you want bubbly or still water. Still water is almost always naturale (though rarely liscia, which means smooth, and I find that amusing) but bubbly water comes with many names: frizzante, gasata, or con gas. Your server will understand any of those, I’m letting you know the variety so you understand when you’re asked. We always order “una e una”, one of each.
Soon someone will likely bring by a bag of gluten fun. Depending on where you are, you might get taralli crackers in Puglia or grissini breadsticks in Piemonte or sliced unsalted bread in Umbria or stretchy sourdough-type bread in Basilicata. The bread is part of the cover charge, but you get charged whether you eat it or not. So you do you.
Time to order!
First thing to note, so there aren’t any surprises—pizza is rarely served for lunch in Italy. If you find a place serving pizza for lunch, it likely won’t be that good for lunch or dinner. Save your pizza needs for dinnertime and find a place that only serves it at dinner and has a roaring fire to prove it.
As for those confusing courses, first let me tell you what they’re called and then I’ll tell you all the exciting things you can do with them.
antipasti: appetizers.
primi: starters, you can think of this as usually a pasta/risotto/polenta (depending on where you are in italy) or a soup course, like lentils.
secondi: the meat or fish course.
contorni: vegetables (salad, roasted potatoes, French fries, grilled vegetables, sauteed greens, etc); contorni are traditionally served after the secondi, but you’ll likely get it with your meal since Italians have learned the rest of the world expects their salads with their pork chops. If you want to make sure you get it together, say, “insieme”. Nowadays, I prefer my salad after my meal, though I still want my potatoes with my main course and ask for it that way. Nobody minds.
dolci: dessert (most commonly tiramisu, panna cotta, semifreddo, and creme caramel).
grappa/limoncello/digestivo: sometimes a glass of one of these after-dinner liquors is brought to you gratis with your bill. I’m always delighted when this happens, as I see it as a sign that the chef loves me. Please don’t disabuse me. This is a harmless delusion.
caffe: aka espresso, and only espresso here guys. You either opt for a caffe or you decline. It’s not true that you can’t get a cappuccino in the afternoon, but if you get it after a meal, it suggests that you have room in your belly for all that milk, which means you messed up somewhere along the way.
Now that you understand the courses, you can think of an Italian meal as a loving parade. A really excellent, indulgent, transformative meal will linger and wander through most of the courses, from antipasti all the way through to coffee. But you have all the freedom you want here! Often Gabe will order a beef tartare antipasti with a contorni of sauteed greens. Some of us get primi, some of us will get secondi (they’ll almost always bring them out together if you each order one of the two; if one of you gets both primo and secondo and everyone else gets primi, they’ll bring everyone primi, and when that meal is cleared, they’ll bring the secondo). Often we’ll all get primi and then a secondo like a platter of grilled meats “per la tavola”, for the table (I have no idea if that’s a real thing, but nobody has ever batted an eye when I’ve asked for it).
If we’re looking forward to a really good meal, we’ll prepare for getting both a primo and secondo by not eating for many, many hours in advance, and absolutely passing on the bread. It's a lot of food, and you don’t want to leave any on your plate or risk offending the chef.
You can order your food by simply saying, per me… As in “Per me, la carbonara e una insalata mista,” which translates to “For me, the carbonara and a mixed salad.”
After ordering, you’ll be asked “da bere?”, which is your cue to say what you’d like to drink. If you’re getting wine, you can either get house wine (a mezzo litro or litro of vino bianco/rosso/rosato della casa) or a bottle of wine off the wine menu.
Now the work is done, and you can sit back and get ready for a profound sense of joyous relaxation. Once when I was at La Cantina with Alison and Andrew from Cheeseweb, we all, at the same moment, felt a sense of total well-being that goes hand in hand with that well-paced, gentle progression of courses. Alison likened it to hygge, a Danish word which has variations in many cultures that loosely translates to the feeling of warm and cozy contentment that comes from flickering candles lighting the darkness, connection with good people, and the twin pleasures of happy tastebuds and the promise of more delights to come.
Yes.
Dining out is a cultural excursion.
While I don’t recommend getting overly invested in research, I do think it’s useful to know about the local specialties before you travel. A quick google search will bring those up, but I usually look at a few sites, and Taste Atlas is one of them. Now, this strategy doesn’t always guarantee a successful meal, unless you are one of those rare people who can happily eat anything. Knowing fave e cicoria (fava beans and chicory) to be a Pugliese speciality, I ordered it with relish on our recent trip, only to discover that while I do love fava beans, in this preparation, it’s a fava puree which tastes like peas.
I hate peas.
Other forays into local Pugliese cuisine were much more successful, including pasticcioti (pastries filled with custard cream) and taieddha (mussels topped with riced potatoes and a gratin of potatoes and olive oil and oregano) and spumoni (two kind of gelato molded together with crunchy nuts in between) and panzerotti (like a fried calzone). Tastebuds tingling yet? Find out the specialities, you’ll be glad you did.
Another fabulous way to get a tour of the local foodways is to order the antipasti della casa. Don’t worry about what those are, just order it, it’ll almost always be there on the menu, antipasti della casa, or with the name of the restaurant. Usually, this platter of delights is portioned for two people and we get one order for all four of us. It is a lot of food. In Abruzzo, one restaurant refused to take our secondi order when we requested the antipasti, saying they’d see if we were still hungry. We were not. That was an antipasti platter on steroids—an award-winning cheese (literally, they showed us the award), plate after plate of magnificent local cured meats, a basket of fried treats like zucchini flowers, tiny meatballs in a flavorful red sauce, cheese and egg balls (sounds awful, tastes terrific), beans of such delicate earthiness they should have another name…and on and on and on.
This is all to say—get the antipasti of the house.
All good things come to an end.
Unlike in the United States, where tables turn over multiple times in the course of a meal service, Italy often has only one seating. Two at most. What does this mean for you? Well, it’s harder to get a table when people aren’t settling up every 45 minutes (hence the need to make reservations), but also this means that nobody is waiting for your table and you will not be rushed away. In fact, it’s often difficult to catch waitstaff’s eye, to indicate that you’re ready for the bill because they aren’t glaring daggers at you to leave. They hardly notice you’re still there.
So linger over your coffee and grappa, if you’re so inclined. And when you are ready, catch your waitstaff’s eye and give the international signing gesture while saying, “il conto, per favore.”
The check will arrive, most often rounded down to avoid the need for coins. No tip is expected, you can leave a few extra euros for a particularly wonderful experience.
A funny story about that. Twenty-five years ago or so, Keith and I traveled to Italy together for the first time (I’d backpacked through Liguria on my gap semester). Our first dinner, we opted for a trattoria in Greve-in-Chianti, down the road from Villa Vignamaggio, where we were staying. We knew very little about Italy at this point, and we thought one had to have grappa at the end of the meal (no idea where we got this from). Ever the rule follower, I ordered my grappa. Then I coughed it down, even though, at that point in my culinary development, it tasted more like rubbing alcohol than something intended to round out a meal. We got the bill, we paid, we dithered about the tip. We’d read that tipping isn’t expected in Italy, but, as Americans, it is hard-wired. Not tipping seemed brutal. We decided to round up, but watch through the window afterwards, and if the waitress paled at the lack of a tip, we could run back and fling down more lira. We giggled as we snuck toward the window, and peeked over the ledge. What we saw confused us at first, because the folio with the bill and money in it lay untouched on the table. Instead, the waitress was holding up my grappa glass and gesturing to the rest of the restaurant, impressed that I had finished it.
What are your strategies for a great meal in Italy? Share this post with your friends!