Italian Beaches; Best Restaurants

This article is a personal selection of great places to eat and best restaurants to go to along the Italian Beaches in my Maremma neighborhood, (which is situated slightly between Talamone, Porto Santo Stefano and inland Magliano on beautiful Italian beaches, as you can see on the map below).

I've been running a small summertime bed and breakfast business from my farmhouse in coastal Maremma for a few years and because I like to make all my guests happy I've learned and can suggest to them where are the great places to eat, what's fun to eat, or what's cheap. Some look for the special or gourmet establishment, others are sticklers for the local traditional tastes.

We are spoiled for choice for the best restaurants - beach restaurants and

• inland trattorias
• fine restaurants
  
• pizzerias and 'sagras' (which are outdoor food festivals in and around local villages).
• Bed and Breakfast farmhouses that serve just a few tables of home made, local food
• small hotels which prize themselves on their cooking
• good take-away cafés
• 'tavola calda' which serve delicious local dishes and cost lots less than restaurants
• bars which serve food too

My guest's dreams, or their budgets are as varied as human nature itself. Some travel with kids, others are on honeymoon. Some are vegetarian, or wine lovers. Others want the night life. Many seek the place that is off the beaten track. Everyone wants something different on an Italian Beaches holiday in Maremma Tuscany.

These Italian beaches are long, sandy and safe. Several concessions with ample parking lots and facilities are along the coast Gianella Road between Albinia and Orbetello. All of them have some sort of café or restaurant or bar, but my choice three along that particular stretch are these beach concessions which offer quality food, ambience and charm during the day and also at night.

Il Tramonto (0564 820320) is exciting trendy (cool for all ages) with it's white colonial balcony overlooking the ocean, where a cocktail before a fish dinner whilst you watch the sun goes down is magic. During the day the bar serves sandwiches and fruit salads and drinks, whilst the pizzeria makes oven fresh pizzas that you can eat at a table, or take on down to the beach. The restaurant serves both outside if you're in shorts, or bikini. It serves elegantly inside, where fans whir, fine wines are offered with awesome fresh fish meals, overlooking the Mediterranean and on the beach.

Florida 0564 820316 is just as wonderful, just down the beach a half a kilometer from Il Tramonto. Here there's a tropical island feel where large fronds of palm keep everywhere cool. The sandwiches served at this bar are fat and tasty. The service is friendly.

The deco hotel on the beach The Lido di Giannella (0564 821034), even further down the road towards Porto Santo Stefano is one of our old time favorites. What it lacks in fine eating and bar finesse, it gains in that funky, traditional feel. Its restaurant and bar Ulisse is great for friend fish lunches and the atmosphere of beautiful young mothers dressed, or, slightly dressed in ritzy beach items with their tanned, handsome Roman Professional husbands.

My favorite 5 star restaurant in the neighborhood is Da Aurora 0564 592774, which is inside the ancient old walled township of Magliano in Toscana. Its many courses of beautifully prepared local dishes and fine wines on fine plates and in fine glasses in an intimate characteristic setting is a culinary dream come true and it is high chique.

We often go to Da Sandra 0564 592196 which has probably graduated to a four star restaurant these days. Once upon a time it was simply the little local restaurant in Magliano in Toscana. It's still family run; the same family and has been around for a very, very long time. The dinner tables set out against the city walls in the narrow main street define it. Their specialties are game, wild boar, funghi porcini and home made pasta dishes - to die for.

There used to be a cowboy watering hole on the edge of the Maremma Natural Park outside Talamone we used to go to. Now we go there for a wild meal in the same place. The original owners Ernesto and Adrianna Burattta have converted rustic dwellings and horse pen into a super location. It's an open air restaurant which overlooks the bay of Talamone. It's Buratta 0564 885164 - Adrianna is still the cook.

In the very small village of Montiano there is a wonderful little restaurant called Ghigo which has tables overlooking the bay and the park and the sunset. It is magical and special. 0564 589643.

Really, the fun thing to do at night in Maremma is find a Sagra and go to it.

A Sagra is an open air food festival where the local women cook the region's specialties and the kids serve them on banquet tables, or plastic tables, either under tents in fields round the villages, or out in the open. In a field!
Everyone piles into the parking lot (which is a field), gets into a happy line, makes their order at the gate (or wooden hut) and is taken to their table by one of the local kid, or pensioner.

It's super organized yet super relaxed. Shortly the kid, or whoever it is serving, brings the food and drinks. You don't tip. Local people and holiday makers all mix happily together. The atmosphere is electric. Everyone looks great with summer tans and dressed in pretty clothes. Children play everywhere. It feels really good to be with the local people and they enjoy the holiday makers just as much. There's a local band playing in the next field. It costs less than restaurant eating and the local dishes served are just as fantastic!

Joined to the mainland by the isthmus from Orbetello is this almost-island surrounded by turquoise sea that has a selection of five star hotels on it for its exquisite beauty and wildness.

The port of Porto Santo Stefano, the main town on the island is one of the most important boat building ports of the Mediterranean. It's a fishing town. (The fishing boats go out every day before dawn and come back every evening after four), so the docks bustle round those times and lots of fish gets sold and ropes get cleaned and nets piled ready for the next day. It has exciting history too since this is where Spanish criminals were deported to several hundred years ago.
Not far away in Porto Ercole (the little sister village on the other side of the 'island') is where Caravaggio is purported to have been murdered.

It's a strikingly handsome port town, bustling with harbor life and lovely bars on the water's edge. There are very many restaurants but unfortunately many of them are no longer 'authentic'.

My favorite restaurants, tested through years of hard trying-out are:

Il Moletto 0564 813636. It serves very delicious fresh fish dishes at lunch time and at night right on the side of the water, overlooking the town and the bay with the pink summer dusk light shimmering over both the port town and the water . (Shut on Wednesday).

Da Zirio. (Don't bother phoning to book). It's a local hangout with the best pizzas and you might have to line up. The prices are right, the location is perfect on the side of the port. It's a family run business and has been for decades. Aside from the real deal pizza, they offer spaghetti with clams sauce or mussel sauce to die for. (Shut on Tuesday).

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