BELVEDERE DAL 1919

A heroic establishment, over a hundred years old, run by the Rebollini family with taste and charm. After the First World War, it was great-grandfather Gianén, a widower with four children to raise, who opened Osteria Italia in the building next to the current restaurant. It is located in a secluded hamlet, in a two-story restaurant with spacious rooms and a cuisine that reflects passion, local tradition, and influences from nearby Liguria, Lombardy, and the Piacenza area. Appetizers include a selection of cured meats, creamed stockfish tart, onion soup with asparagus and a soft-boiled egg, vineyard snails with wild herb butter, and Jerusalem artichoke and Montebore gratin. A fish dish includes pumpkin soup with toasted scallops and oyster stew, or celeriac soup with passatelli and toasted shrimp. The "naked-bottom" agnolotti are one of the restaurant's signature dishes, as are the risotto with 36-month-old Parmigiano cheese, beef stock, and porcini mushrooms, and the passatelli in chicken broth, sour cream, and egg yolk. Among the main courses, a popular dish is the three-cooking free-range chicken, or "our father's" chicken cacciatore. Others have also enjoyed the grilled grass-fed beef sirloin and the turbot steak meunière. For dessert, try the "our" tiramisu, or the Carle apple tart with its sorbet in the summer. The wine list is very well-curated (including Montegioco beer). Some of the farmyard animals are raised on-site, the vegetables are from the nearby garden, and the bread and breadsticks are homemade. Reservations online and by phone are helpful.