Tour and Workshop News, and Tooling Around Umbria
Plus, a short but good list of places to eat in Valle di Assisi
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Welcome to Buona Domenica, a weekly newsletter of Italian home cooking and baking. I’m a journalist, cooking teacher, occasional tour guide, and author of eight cookbooks on Italian cuisine.
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This week’s newsletter features places to eat in the Valle di Assisi, a serene slice of Umbria. Plus, registration for my Spring 2025 Culinary Tour of Liguria and Emilia-Romagna is open; and a preview of a Spring Food Writing Workshop with fellow food writer Kathy Gunst.
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On to the newsletter…
SPRING 2025 CULINARY TOUR: Liguria and Parma
I’m happy to share the news that REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for my Spring 2025 Liguria-Parma Culinary Tour, in collaboration with Beautiful Liguria. Many of you have contacted me about this tour, and I’m delighted to confirm that it is on.
Dates: May 4 - May 11, 2025. This is a week-long culinary tour that will take us from Genoa and the Italian Riviera, to Parma and the hills of Emilia-Romagna. Here are the highlights:
Street Food Tour of Genoa, with stops at historic food shops and confectioneries
Private Pasta-Making class in a Renaissance palazzo
Tours of picturesque Ligurian seaside villages that aren’t the overcrowded Cinque Terre
Visit to the terraced olive groves of an olive oil producer located on the slopes of Portofino Mountain, accompanied by a private pesto class and lunch
Tour of Parma’s Historic Centro
Private Tour of a Dairy producing Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Private Tour of a producer of Prosciutto di Parma
Visit to a small producer of aged balsamic vinegar
Visits to the area’s castles
Farewell apericena in Parma
This tour has limited space: 10 spots. Please contact me via email (domenica@domenicacooks.com) if you are interested in registering, and I will send you the full itinerary, pricing, and registration information. PLEASE NOTE that I will be on the road this week, so it may take me a few days to get back to you.
FOOD WRITERS IN ITALY 2025: Piemonte
James Beard Award-winning writer Kathy Gunst and I will once again be holding our annual Food Writers in Italy workshop in 2025. Each year, we choose a different region as our location for the workshop. And 2025’s location is the spectacular region of Piemonte, specifically the bucolic Langhe hills outside of Torino, where Barolo wine is produced.
Dates: May 18-23, 2025. We will be announcing details about the workshop soon. In the mean time, if you are a food writer—whether experienced or aspiring—who is interested in attending, please send me an email (domenica@domenicacooks.com) and I will put you on the ‘notify’ list. More to come soon!
Umbria: Some Places to Eat in the Valle di Assisi
I spent most of last week tooling around the Valle di Assisi, the flat stretch of land surrounded by gentle Umbrian hills that extends from Perugia down to Spoleto in the southern part of the region. The crowning jewel of this part of Umbria is, of course, Assisi itself, perched on a spur of Monte Subasio. The medieval town is home to the impressive cream stone Basilica of Saint Francis, which keeps a watchful gaze over the valley, and also to the Basilica di Santa Chiara, one of Francis’s devoted followers.
Assisi is, for obvious reasons, the most famous of the medieval towns in the valley. But there are other jewels here, all constructed of creamy peach and champagne-colored stones embellished with cast-iron accents and balconies and heavy polished wood doors. Uno piu bello dell’altro, as my mom used to say. One more beautiful than the next.
Spello is a much Instagrammed town noted for the profusion of flowers that spill from its balconies and doorsteps. Every June, Spello outdoes every other community with its gorgeous, extravagant infiorate. These are mosaic carpets (of sorts) that run through town that are constructed completely of flower petals and greenery.
Spello is also where something called Acqua ai Fiori di Spello (Water of Flowers of Spello) is produced. This is a line of fragrances and skin care products made with local ingredients that seems to have been modeled on the famous skin care line produced by Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. And it appears to have overtaken most of the shops in town. I don’t remember encountering Acqua di Fiore di Spello on my previous visit in 2021, but it’s possible it existed. Being a sucker for such little luxuries, I badly wanted to buy a bottle of cologne or moisturizer, but (alas!) I could not stand the cloying fragrance, which permeates the main street in the small centro storico. Spello is still worth a visit; just try to look past the touristy stuff and make your way to the top of the town, where you’ll find views of the surrounding countryside and the tiny 13th Century stone Chiesa dei Cappuccini S. Severino.
Trevi, south of Spello, is a town I prefer. It still has a whiff tourism about it, but less so than Spello. It’s also where one of my favorite restaurants in the valley is located (more on that shortly). Trevi is one of the Borghi più belli d’Italia (most beautiful villages in Italy) and, like Spello and Assisi, is meticulously maintained. The town spills down from a hilltop, and driving up to it provides you with striking views of its biscuit- and cream-colored stone structures. Walking up and down its narrow streets is a good way to build up an appetite.
Bevagna is my favorite of the towns near Assisi. And, unlike Spello and Trevi, it is right in the valley, which means it is flat. To reach it, you just follow the road until you come upon a crenellated stone tower with an arched entryway. Park in the lot to your right and walk on in to the centro storico. On the main street you’ll find shops, bars, a casual pizzeria or two, a couple or three good restaurants, and a fantastic salumeria-norcineria, a shop that sells a wonderful selction of house-cured meats, a craft for which Umbria is renowned. When I was there last week, the town was in the midst of setting up for its Mercato delle Gaite, an annual festival that celebrates Bevagna’s medieval history. One of the shop keepers, an old gentleman selling woven baskets and terra cotta pottery, pointed out the oldest building in the town, and informed me that beneath it and the cobbled street lay the ancient Via Flaminia, which connected Rome to the Adriatic Coast.
Umbria is rather a meat lover’s paradise, between the artisanal cured meats, stews and roasts featuring wild boar, and the many cuts of beef, pork, and fowl cooked alla brace—over an open fire. Which brings me to the food part of this post. There are good places to eat in all these towns. Here is a short list of restaurants I’ve enjoyed over numerous visits to the area, staring with Bevagna.
SCOTTADITO OSTERIA TAGLIAVENTO, Bevagna: I’ve eaten at this rustic, meat-forward restaurant three times: twice in the last week and once in 2015, when I was in town to interview owners Marco Biagetti and his wife, Rosita Cariani for my book Preserving Italy. Marco is a norcino/salumiere, who specializes in the butchering and curing of pork. His shop is located a stone’s throw from the osteria. At the end of the day, he locks the door to his salumeria, Norcineria da Tagliavento, and walks the few dozen steps to the restaurant to cook while Rosita tends to customers.
The menu runs the carnivore gamut from salumi and tartare of Chianaina beef (the famous, muscular white breed of cattle) to bistecca alla fiorentina, chops, tagliata, and mixed grill. The small selection of sides includes salad, roast potatoes, and potatoes cooked in the hearth. One night I had tagliata di manzo, thin strips of beef served with arugula and Grana cheese (plus those blackened hearth-cooked potatoes); the second night I had an ample, though thinly sliced, pork chop called a tamanta, and a salad. (Marco and Rosita come from generations of norcini; you’ll find the story I wrote about them on page 228 of Preserving Italy.)
RISTORANTE TAVERNA DEL 7, Trevi: I’ve now been here three times between 2016 and last week. Like Scottadito, this food at this somewhat more elegant restaurant revolves around a gorgeous indoor hearth. I first ate here during a press trip to Umbria highlighting the region’s olive oil. The steak we were served was generously anointed with fresh oil; I’ve never forgotten it. The quality of the food here is stellar. A few years ago, I brought my husband as we were heading down to Abruzzo from northern Italy. I know exactly what we had because I wrote it down:
* Prosecco
* Focaccia con cipolla e pomodorini (they always send out a little square of focaccia as a benvenuto).
* Black celery soup (a seasonal specialty in fall) with flakes of pecorino cheese and croutons
* Bean and legume soup with Umbrian olive oil
* Sausages and pork ribs alla brace
* Turnip greens sautéed with olive oil
* Coffee
The other day, on my own, I had a mixed salad and a simply grilled chicken thigh and leg, charred and juicy. I don’t think it was seasoned with anything other than salt and pepper and olive oil but it was memorable.
RISTORANTE IL PINTURICCHIO, Spello: I did not have a meal in Spello this time around, but I did have a lovely lunch on a sweltering day in July 2021. I had climbed to the top of town and, on my way down, stopped at Ristorante Il Pinturicchio. Situated farther up the hill than the central piazza, it was less busy than other places in town. I had a plate of square ravioli filled with eggplant purée and topped with diced fresh cherry tomatoes—nearly raw but not quite—and garnished with tiny eloganted leaves of thyme and shavings of ricotta salata. (Incidently, these became the template for the eggplant ravioli I taught in my online summer pasta class in 2022.) On the side, a mixed salad, and to drink, a glass of straw-colored Trebbiano di Montefalco. As I write this, I am regretting not stopping there on this trip.
PASTICCERIA SENSI, Assisi: Rather than recommend a restaurant in town, I’d like to draw your attention to the small, elegant pasticcerie scattered throughout the centro storico of Assisi. Most sell a similar array of sweets: cookies; giant meringues, sometimes dyed pink, green, or blue; slabs of torrone; and cannoli (whyyyy??? this did not used to be the case and to be honest they did not look appealing, sitting there in the shop windows, already filled with a variety of gooey-looking creams). Leave the cannoli and instead get yourself a slice of rocciata, a strudel-like pastry filled with lightly spiced apples, raisins, pine nuts, and walnuts. I bought my slice at Pasticceria Sensi, which also had the best-looking meringues and an elegant café with painted cherubs on the vaulted ceiling.
IL CERRETO, Bettona: This agriturismo was not on my radar, but as I was getting ready to leave Umbria, I was invited by
to join her, her daughter Sophie, and their tour group for lunch. And so, I was treated to a wonderful meal of pasta with ragù di pecora (sheep ragù) and an unbelievable rich and delicious parmigiana di cipolle (onion parmigiana) made by Chef Doriana with local sweet onions that are fried in batter and then layered with tomato sauce, bechamel, and copious amounts of parmigiano cheese. You can bet I will be recreating this at home.Have you been to Umbria? Where are your favorite places to eat?
Thanks, as always, for reading, subscribing, and sharing.
Alla prossima,
Domenica
Thanks for the food recommendations and also complimenti to Daniela Bracco, I always enjoy her graphics.
We took my parents-in-law to Umbria in 2017 in the aftermath of my brother's wedding in Siena. They still talk about it as one of their favourite holidays. We based ourselves in Spoleto which we found to be a charming town with friendly inhabitants: I recall stumbling into a restaurant in the middle of a thunderstorm and being greeted like long lost friends. I can't recall the specifics of what we ate during our stay but we loved the food, and the way it paired with various Montefalco rosso. We visited Assisi as my mother-in-law is devoted to Saint Francis (she named her first born after him). Father-in-law found the hilly topology hard work. We went to Spello specifically because we had seen the Pinturicchio frescoes in the Baglioni Chapel on a BBC TV programme (the exact clip is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jvphp), maybe it was because it was late September but we practically had the place to ourselves. Based on your post I think we only scratched the surface of Umbria, I would love to go back.