Casa del Brodo, Palermo, Sicily

There's something about a table for one in Italy that's an especially lonely experience. Eating is such an important part of Italian social life that to do it alone seems a bit like... well, never mind what it's a bit like. It's not as good as eating in company. You want to share the food, try your partner's, discuss it, compare it, make ecstatic mmm and aah noises about it, and you can't really do those things on your own. There's only one thing worse than eating on your own, and that's eating in a room where everyone else is eating on their own. The silence is deafening.

You don't often see lone Italian diners, but for a while at the beginning of the evening an Italian chap and I were the only people eating in the Casa del Brodo in Palermo, and we spent an uncomfortably hushed half an hour ordering and waiting for our food to arrive. Even the waiting staff seemed embarrassed that their restaurant could only attract a couple of Billy-no-mates.

The place is sub-titled 'dal dottore', a reference to the original chef's broths that were restorative enough to heal the sick. Today it's one of Slow Food's Palermo eating recommendations. Actually I was a bit disappointed and didn't feel terribly restored. I ate a plate of battered fried vegetables that were pretty tasteless. Then maccu di fava - a soup of broad beans and wild fennel that purports to be one of their specials, but didn't taste very special to me. Finally cotoletti di agnello, a platter of grilled lamb cutlets that were, frankly, fatty and tough. My fellow solo diner must have chosen better, as he cleared both of his plates. But I'm prepared to bet that, when sharing the table with a companion, everything would be better: the service would be brighter and even the lamb would be tender. So I'd go again, just not on my own.

This shot of the police has little to do with Casa del Brodo, other than it was taken nearby. And maybe that they were on the lookout for rogue lone diners, in an attempt to banish them from Palermo's streets.

Casa del Brodo, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 175, Palermo

Tel 091 321655

Casa del Brodo

Casa di Flora, Torino, Piedmont

Turin is a rather dour industrial city, we found. Perhaps it was just the autumn greyness, which persisted in the city as it had over the fields we'd crossed by train from Venice. So when, on a dour street in a dour quarter we found our bed and breakfast, it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by Flora, our distinctly cheery black-haired hostess, and shown to a top floor room that wasn't dour at all.

We'd arrived at the station with no directions to the guest house, just an address, and couldn't understand why the map that we bought from the platform stationers made no sense whatsoever. Nothing was where it should have been. The street we should have stepped onto as we emerged from the station didn't exist. It took several minutes of map turning and head scratching to realise we'd arrived at a different station to the one we were looking at on the map.

Simplest solution was to grab a taxi. The twelve minute journey that followed was probably the most hair raising since we'd screeched around Amalfi coast bends at the hands (well, only one hand on the wheel, the other was used to hold his phone to his ear) of the self-proclaimed Americano. But that's another story. Our Turin driver shot off at a pace, employing an unusual technique of driving in the opposite direction to the bulk of the traffic, which was usually heading straight towards us. Anyway, we reached Via le Chiuse and Casa di Flora in one rather shaken piece. A grinning Flora met us at the front door and showed us up the stairwell of wrought iron balustrades, wooden handrails and blood-red polished plaster to the top floor, and our room. Actually, make that 'apartment'.

Right up in the roof space, with velux windows looking over on the nearby rooftops, the generous room had a full kitchen area (though curiously no cooking pan, crockery or utensils), a sitting area, double bed and a spacious bathroom. Breakfast was cosy and communal, as guests squeezed around the table in Flora's own kitchen while she made tea and coffee.

During our short stay we never did get to grips with the bus and tram system. Thankfully not all the taxis were as manically driven as our first.

By the way, did you know that the T in FIAT stands for Torino?

La Casa di Flora B&B, Via Le Chiuse 85, Torino

Tel 011 4733456

La Casa di Flora

Sagra degli gnocchi, Santa Maria, Monteleone d'Orvieto

This one's a bit different. It's not a hotel or a restaurant, but a tent in a field. And it's only there for a few days a year. It's a sagra, a kind of food festival. All across Italy towns and villages arrange festivals to celebrate a particular food and drink that's either exactly in season or especially good in that region. There are sagre celebrating everything from sardines to wild boar, chestnuts to lemons, and probably things we've never heard of too.

Marta, hostess of the agriturismo we were staying at, explained to us that a neighbouring village was holding a sagra degli gnocchi, and directed us to tiny, workmanlike Santa Maria on a warm summer's evening. We weren't really sure what a gnocchi festival might consist of, but when we arrived at seven the village showed no signs of preparation for it. A few people wandered about, but the streets were empty of stalls or flags or people dressed as potato dumplings, or anything else that might comprise a celebration. Perhaps it kicked off at midnight, we wondered. I imagined a surreptitious moonlit pagan gnocchi-fest in which offerings were made to the great potato god. Or maybe we just had the wrong day, or were in the wrong village.

We were about to leave, disappointedly, when we found it: a sign pointing down a lane leading to a field, at the gate of which two mannequins dressed in rustic costume were seated at a check-clothed table. An English-speaking girl gave us a warm welcome and explained the ropes – order from the menu, pay, keep the ticket and take a seat in the marquee, where our food would be brought to us. We passed a field kitchen in which steam rose from dozens of giant pots, watched over by ranks of ladies from the village, and smoke drifted from barbecues watched over by the men. Inside the giant marquee dozens of trestle tables and benches had been neatly arranged in rows, the end of each table adorned with a carved wooden number decorated with a few ears of wheat. We took our seats at a table near the entrance and waited expectantly. A few other people drifted in, chatting and laughing – couples, families, friends – and a band started to warm up on a stage at the far end of the marquee. The first part of our order arrived: two plastic bowls of steaming gnocchi, plastic glasses and an opened bottle of white wine. Next a paper plate of herb-scented guinea fowl which we ate greedily with our fingers. The band was in full swing now, as more people arrived and took their seats and the marquee was filled with happy chatter and bustling grandmothers, ferrying enormous quantities of food from the steaming, smoking kitchen.

We left as it grew dark, with what remained of our bottle of wine, feeling that we should leave the rest of the sagra to the villagers. And glad that we hadn't given up finding the place.

No website or phone number for the field, of course! But if you ever hear there's a sagra nearby on your Italian travels, try and go. You'll probably enjoy it as much as we did.

Hotel Posta dei Donini, San Martino in Campo, Umbria

At first we hesitated to enter the gates, unsure whether we'd arrived at a hotel or a BMW showroom. The car maker's flags and signage adorned the entrance, and the badges on the cars in the car park were all the same - BMW. Turned out that the hotel had been hosting a training session on the then new 5 series for three months. No mention of that when we booked, of course. We felt a bit like gatecrashers, crunching up the drive in our hired Renault, and in fact for a while we were the only non-BMW technicians staying at the hotel.

Inside was all elegance and calm. The slightly cool reception from the staff and the fact that we were left to carry our own luggage up to our room on the second floor was partly made up for by our room – a spacious junior suite with exposed beams and wooden floors, and lovely furniture and fabrics. Beyond the shutters were wonderful views of the manicured grounds. The bathroom had an alcove bath and a showerhead as big as... well, your head!

Around the deserted pool we had our pick of white cane furniture on which to relax undisturbed as the heady scent of jasmine wafted across the grounds. But the BMW presence seemed to have distracted the staff from attending to its leisure guests. In other words, us. There were no pool towels. The bar was unmanned, until we pointed out to reception that we would quite like a cold drink. The attentiveness couldn't have been greater though when we ate that evening in the hotel restaurant, Panta Gruel. They were all over us like a rash.

The restaurant manager, Luigi, was clearly intent on practising his English and, as we were the only diners, was able to lavish his full and concentrated attention on us. The food and service actually turned out to be very good, if a little too nuova cucina for our peasant tastes. We ate lovely things like steamed asparagus and cheese fondue, maltagliata with rosemary, prawns, tomato and chickpea purée; pork fillet with risina beans (I'd never heard of them either) and warm apple and raisin salad. In small portions on huge plates. You get the idea.

To finish, I wanted to try a particular cheese, sairass, a ricotta seasoned in straw and served with chestnut honey. With a face like he had just kicked a football through the largest window in his neighbour's house, Luigi explained that they had run out. But brilliantly he thought of a way to compensate for this seemingly punishable offence: "I am going to serve you a plate of the most wonderful (strong emphasis on this word) cheeses in all of Italy!" Brave words. A plate arrived, generously groaning with six cheeses, each presented with an appropriate accompaniment, and a clear instruction about the order in which they should be eaten. I could publish a whole formaggio-dedicated blog, but suffice it to say that this was the best cheese plate I've ever tasted, and that the final cheese – one which had spent most of its life buried in the ground, apparently – left me speechless, watery-eyed and defeated, such was its intensity. Luigi shook my hand vigorously as we left the restaurant, impressed I think by my bravery.

I retired, to cheese-fuelled dreams of autobahns and ultimate driving machines.

Hotel Posta dei Donini, Via Deruta 43, 06132 San Martino in Campo, Perugia

Tel 075 609132

Posta dei Donini

La Dimora del Genio, Palermo, Sicily

What can I tell you about this guest house on Via Garibaldi, on the edge of the Kalsa district of the city? I can tell you about the most striking, most memorable feature of my three night stay here. The sounds.

My room was on the second floor. The building opposite, like half of Palermo it seemed, was being renovated. Noisily. I got used to it. My window looked down on a little alley, where I watched – and mostly heard – the daily life of a Palermo family. In the little space outside their door they had chairs and a table covered with a patterned oilcloth. A shopping trolley, a stool and a plastic chair. And at least one scooter, though they came and went so frequently it was hard to tell. They might have had four. In this alley the adults met, sat and talked, and the children played hopscotch and dancing. The house next door was derelict, the roof a pile of rubble.

Throughout my time here, noise drifted relentlessly in through my window, like a soundtrack. The clink of hammer on chisel, the tap of hammer on wood. The whirr of a drill. A shrill sound, electrical, intermittent, which I couldn't place. It mingled with the laughter and shouts of the children, and occasional squeal of excitement or delight. A young man using the alley (regularly) to practise his moped riding skills. Shouts of men from one end of the alley to the other, loud and unselfconscious. The lower conversations of men standing on corners, planning... or plotting. Men singing. Women singing. Tap of utensil on pot. A dog barking. The moped again. The odd blast of incredibly loud music. Fireworks that sounded like gunfire.

On my last night here, there was some sort of party. Much talk and laughter, and the children were outside in the warm evening, shouting and playing, until midnight. Suddenly the proceedings were brought to an abrupt conclusion by two loud belches from the men. Followed by complete silence.

I could also tell you that the house is filled with old furniture and the owner's paintings, that the Bangladeshi housekeeper prepares excellent breakfasts and that the signora who owns the place, Paola Mendola, is hardly ever there. It's on the fringe of a fairly gritty part of town, which is fine if you've come to experience the sights – and sounds – of the real Palermo.

That soundtrack is going on even now, I imagine. Wish I could still hear it.

La Dimora del Genio, Via Garibaldi 58, 90133 Palermo

Tel 347 658764

La Dimora del Genio

Hotel Gardenia al Lago, Gargnano

Agatha Christie would have felt at home here. Or one of her characters. At any moment, Hercule Poirot might have stepped off a boat and into the rose-filled garden, taken tea in the sitting room and pronounced the waiter the unlikely murderer of Lady Clementine, who had visited Lake Garda for the sake of her health, but found the trip was to be the death of her. I have a vivid imagination, sorry.

Elegant is the word. Not stuffy or pretentious, and no hip hotel either, in fact the Gardenia al Lago is just ever so slightly faded, but all the more comfortable and welcoming for that. We arrived in late afternoon rain, which had brought down a mist onto the lake and shrouded the far shore. But the welcome from the Arosio brothers was bright and sunny and as we sipped tea in the living room, rain running down the windows and weighing down the roses, we felt immediately at home here.

Our rooms (we were travelling with my elderly mother-in-law) were directly opposite each other, as we'd requested, at the end of a corridor. Each was spotlessly clean and beautifully furnished – gleaming wood, colourful floor tiles, newly fitted bathrooms – and had French doors opening onto an enormous sun terrace which in turn directly overlooked the lake. Well it would have done if we could have seen the lake that evening. The mist had thickened.

For the three nights of our stay we'd decided to take dinner at the hotel. Panoramic windows in the huge dining room also overlook the lake, creating the feeling of being on a ship (on that evening a fog-bound one). To be fair, the food wasn't stunning, but it was perfectly adequate and served with a friendly professionalism that made up for any lack of gastronomic adventure. Like everything else about the hotel, eating here was comfortable and relaxing, not demanding. Sometimes that's all you want.

Next morning the mist cleared slowly as we ate breakfast, and we saw for the first time the lake's other shore. A few steps along the quiet road outside the hotel brings you to the sleepy hamlet of Villa (where DH Lawrence lived for a few months in 1912), and where orange trees surround the tiny harbour. Oranges occasionally fell from the trees and plopped into the water. A little further on is the only slightly more awake little town of Gargnano, where you can catch boats to other places around the lake.

On the morning we left it was sunny. Signora Arosio, the brothers' mother, was in the garden, secateurs in hand, tending the roses and geraniums and bourganvilea. We had a brief chat in which I told her how beautiful the garden was, and how lovely her hotel. She wore an incongruous combination of a smart dress and pink Marigold rubber gloves, yet was the epitome of elegance - there, that word again.

And not in the least faded.

Hotel Gardenia al Lago, Via Colleta, 53 25084 Villa di Gargnano (BS), Lago di Garda

Tel 0365 71195

Hotel Gardenia al Lago

Antiche Sere, Turin, Piedmont

You just know, the moment you cross the threshold of this backstreet osteria, that it will be good. The two wood-panelled dining rooms – one which you step directly into from the front door, and one tucked away at the back – are simply furnished. Starched lace curtains hang from the windows. The tables are laid with plain cotton cloths, and cutlery and glass tumblers denote each place setting. There are no pictures on the walls, no unnecessary adornment. Nothing to detract from the serious business of good eating.

We arrived at seven, to be beckoned smilingly in by one of the three slim and handsome young women who run the place. Had we booked? No. Then we could have a table, but only until nine thirty. That would be fine. But now, she said with charming assertiveness, we must go for a walk, because the restaurant did not start serving until eight. Having walked a mile to get here, and sensing that this would be worth the wait, we obeyed and patiently sipped beer for an hour in a bar down the street.

Offered a choice of tables when we returned, we opted for one in the front room, better to watch the comings and goings. The menus, written on thick orange sugar paper, proposed just a few dishes for each course. At our hostess's advice I ordered a modestly priced Barbera from the list of mainly local bottles. First came an unexpected appetiser from the chef – a salami of pork and boiled potatoes, soft and pink, with a texture something like a sopressa, but coarser, and earthily raw when spread onto the crusty bread of which we had a basketful, and followed by a mouthful of wine.

It was partway through my next course, gnocchetti with sausage, and after a further couple of glasses of wine, that the word sublime came to mind. It was simply the most appropriate description of the moment's experience. The gnocchetti melted away in the mouth, the sausage sufficient, though there was barely half a sausage-worth of meat, to lend fennely flavour and knobbly texture, and a scant juice. Outside it was black. Inside, the restaurant had now swelled with diners, mostly Italian and seemingly known to the hosts, and was warm and bright, filled with a heady mix of contented chatter and smiles. At regular intervals more hopeful customers entered, to be told the restaurant was full. How about tomorrow? Sorry, fully booked. We'd been lucky to squeeze in at all. The three women moved about the restaurant, taking orders and serving food and wine, with a warmth and attractiveness that was as easy on the spirit as on the eye.

Next, a thick slab of pot-roasted veal, succulent and tender, and rosemary roast potatoes. Then panna cotta and Piedmontese bonnet. We were invited to try a special Slow Food dessert (we were here for the Salone del Gusto) – mandarin ice cream from Sicily, served with a glass of local Asti. Then coffee. And a grappa. It was heading towards the appointed hour of nine thirty, when we would turn into pumpkins if we hadn't vacated our table. But I couldn't have eaten or drunk another thing anyway. We paid a ludicrously good value bill (the ice cream, the Asti and the grappa were complimentary) and I shook the hand of the handsome dark-haired woman in thanks. I wondered about a kiss, but decided it would be presumptuous.

We walked the mile back to our bed and breakfast, still surrounded, it seemed, by the warm, happy glow of the osteria. A bit like the old Ready Brek ad.

Osteria Antiche Sere, Via Cenischia, 9, 10139 Torino

Tel 011 3854347

Can't find a website of their own, but I'm sure those three young women are too occupied serving customers to worry about such things. Who needs a web site anyway, when you serve such good food to so many people? (This picture, by the way, is not of the osteria: I was too busy eating to think about a photograph. It's just a little piece of Torino that I glimpsed and liked.)

Ristorante - Pizzeria Casin dei Nobili, Venice

Casin dei Nobili's emblem is a mildly saucy rendition of two nubile young things, and signs at the bar cheekily refer to matters like how much half an hour costs and warnings not to manhandle the girls until you've paid the madam. None too subtle hints at the building's history.

Nubile young things are still employed here, but now they bring menus, wine and food, and a welcoming smile that's a refreshing change in a city with its fair share of sullen waiting staff. Our own NYT was especially cheerful and keen to practice her English. At one point her enthusiasm got the better of her and a plate of food destined for the next table dropped from her hand to the floor with a crash. No matter. She still smiled.

We shared a plate of warm seafood antipasti – octopus and squid and prawns and other things – then whole bass baked with thinly sliced potatoes and a crispy, salty, lemony fritto misto. All excellent. We skipped dessert, but couldn't resist a liquirizia with our coffee. We've come to know these licorice-cough-medicine drinks as 'Berties', for reasons which some of you will fathom, and I think they've become mildly addictive.

We left some time later, the happier, warmer, slightly fuzzier and fuller, and feeling distinctly less nubile than when we'd arrived.

Ristorante - Pizzeria Casin dei Nobili, Venezia, S. Barnaba, Dorsoduro 2765

Tel 041 241 1841

It's reassuring somehow that a restaurant can drum up so much custom without having its own website (or one that I can find).

Taverna del Duca, Amalfi, Campania

It's just coincidence that this restaurant in Amalfi is called the same as the one in Locorotondo mentioned in the last entry in this blog. There are probably hundreds of Taverna del Ducas across Italy. Like there are hundreds of Dog and Ducks across England, I suppose.

Anyway, it was here at this little restaurant that I ate a dish I'd not encountered before, and would be disappointed to see on the menu after a Tuesday. It was schiaffoni alla ragu della domenica, or pasta with Sunday sauce, and I enjoyed it, appropriately enough, on a Monday. Like many a Monday supper in our own home, the dish presumably relies on leftover roasted meat from Sunday. Whilst we have cottage pie with yesterday's roast beef or shepherd's pie with yesterday's roast lamb, they have pasta with Sunday sauce. I couldn't tell you whether the meat was beef or pork, but it was delicious, with the occasional caramelised burnt edge of roasted meat and a deep ragu of tomatoes and herbs and maybe red wine that spoke of long, slow cooking.

So why the picture of a guitar? Well, the service here was what you might call relaxed. Not sloppy or tardy, but casual. Our food was brought to us by a middle-aged chap with longish, thinning hair and a toothless smile, wearing a worn out jumper and jeans. Part way through the evening, he picked up a guitar and started to sing to the assembled diners. Except he sang so softly that no one could hear him. When he accompanied his playing with a kazoo (played just as inaudibly), it became bizarre. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Pepe.

Turned out that Pepe was a true wandering minstrel. On discovering we were English, he proceeded to regale us with tales of how he had worked in London as a young man. At the Café Royal, no less. And the Ritz. He punctuated his little tales with an occasional (soft) strum of his guitar. He told us how the people he had worked with had cropped up again in his life, unexpectedly, in other parts of the world. Strum. Like the boy from Naples who worked with him in London, before they went their separate ways, until he bumped into him in a park in Paris several years later. Strum. It was a small world. Strum. If truth be told, we couldn't get rid of him. Until he told us that he had a wife and five children to support and that he just worked in the trattoria to help out, they didn't pay him, and times were tough... we gave him a few euros, and he was off to the next table. Strum.

Next morning we wandered past the restaurant on our way down to catch a boat from the harbour. There was Pepe, setting up the parasols. He waved, as if surprised to see us. It's a small world.

Ristorante La Taverna del Duca, Piazza Spirito Santo, 26 - 84011 Amalfi

Tel 089 872755

La Taverna del Duca

Taverna del Duca, Locorotondo, Puglia

The town of Locorotondo pretty much does what it says on the tin. As you might expect of a town with five o's in its name, it's a round place that sits, like other towns in this region, atop a small hill that rises like a bump from the plain below. A neat and tidy town of bleached stone and whitewash.

Tucked away in the old part of the town, not that there really is a new part, La Taverna del Duca keeps itself to itself. From the outside it's just a door and a sign - no windows, no menu. Inside, the dining room of just half a dozen check-clothed tables is open to the tiny kitchen in the corner, dominated by a large wood-burning oven.

The no menu theme continues inside too. When we arrived, the owner, chef and waitress – yes, that's all one person – beamed us a welcome, directed us to a table and asked us in Italian what we would like to eat. We asked if she had a menu. Patiently our hostess, a woman in her early forties perhaps, with large and intense dark eyes, explained in single words, each one emphasised by pressing one forefinger against the other, that there was antipasti... pasta... carne... We agreed to the antipasti, so we were off the mark. And pasta, yes please. And the carne, why not? We really had no idea what we were about to receive.

The woman smiled and retired to her kitchen, quickly returning with a basket of roughly-hewn bread and a chipped ceramic jug of white primitivo wine. Then a plate of olives. Then a couple of plates of antipasti. Then a couple more. And more. There were smokily grilled peppers, small balls of burrata which burst into cold creaminess, sweet buttery ham, a purée of beans and a dish of humble cauliflower that was revelatory. While we ate our hostess busied herself in the kitchen, at intervals poking her head inside the wood-fired oven to check the progress of whatever was inside. Next, the pasta. Huge bowls of orechiette in a simple but delicious fresh tomato sauce.

Then an earthenware dish was brought to the table bearing a bubbling piece of braised meat: "stinco!" she proclaimed proudly. Stinco, we discovered, is shin of pork. At the lightest touch it collapsed off the bone into the wine and vegetable sauce that bathed it. Nothing accompanied it, and nothing was needed. When the shin had been picked to the bone and the wine jug was empty, Antonella (for by now this is how we knew her) insisted that we try her cake. When I declined she patted my stomach, as one might pat a drum to check its taughtness, then smiled and insisted I had a grappa instead. 'Piccolo, piccolo' I protested, weakly. A huge glass of grappa arrived. She laughed and patted my stomach again. Finally, coffee. Full, glowing, and very, very happy, we said our thank yous and farewells.

And were back next evening.

Taverna del Duca, Via Papadotera, 3, 70010 Locorotondo (BA)

Tel 0804 313007

This is one of the best places I have eaten in my life. Really. If you're within a hundred miles, make the detour.

La Stalla, Assisi, Umbria

I have a great idea for a restaurant with a difference. Find an old barn. Sweep it out (not too assiduously – a few strands of straw are all to the good). Paint the walls with grafitti and furnish the place with wooden tables and chairs, the older and more rickety the better. Cover the tables with gingham cloths and adorn with rustic cutlery. Now, and this is really important, construct an ancient log-fired grill in a suitable corner, one where the logs burn down to embers which can be used to cook food on huge grills above. You'll need plenty of logs. Big ones. Let the fire blacken the walls and the beams of the ceiling over time. Use the grill to cook all kinds of tasty foods, and serve simply, with jugs of wine, to the hoardes of appreciative diners who will beat a path to your door.

It's a great idea, but sadly (or happily) not an original one. La Stalla, a mile out of Assisi on the road, well, track really, to the Santuario delle Carceri, has been doing it for years. I had read about the place. I'd checked it out one lunchtime, and booked for that evening. (Some places are better in the dark. La Stalla is one of them.) But I hadn't been prepared for that evening's experience. Crikey, this was good.

It was smoky, in an appetising way. The cooking on the huge grill seemed to be no-one's responsibility in particular, but anyone who passed (sometimes we weren't sure if they were even members of staff or just passers-by) checked and turned the food. A sort of communal cooking. We ate sausage and quail, lamb and beef, all grilled to perfection. Nestled amongst the glowing ashes were dusty grey orbs that turned out to be baked potatoes. Lightly dusted off, then slathered with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, their flesh yellow and melting, they were the best baked potatoes I've ever tasted. Small earthenware dishes were placed on the grill too – cheese, baked with wine and herbs.

The tables are communal, and part way through the evening a single, elegant middle-aged lady graciously joined us and enjoyed a joint of chicken grilled, as everything else, on this enormous indoor barbecue. She smiled and acknowledged us, as if we had somehow joined the La Stalla club. Perhaps we had. The volume in the restaurant increased through the evening, as diners enjoyed the food and wine. The grill glowed like a furnace. Extra logs were added and the fire was stoked. More food was added to the grill. This was the kind of place you could settle in and stay long, long into the night.

For several days afterwards the smell of smoke lingered on my jumper and made me smile.

La Stalla, Via Santuario delle Carceri, 24, 06081 Assisi (PG)

Tel 075 812 317

Loads of reviews. No site of their own. The smoke probably stops them from seeing the computer screen. Just go. Go.

Da Baracca, Amalfi, Campania

It's usually a good sign when a restaurant owner stands outside his establishment and welcomes his guests. It means he's also happy to stand up and be counted when they come to leave. The owner of blue and white Da Baracca, set in a tiny square back from the main Amalfi drag, stood next to a sign that proudly proclaimed 'since 1945' (think that meant the restaurant, not him, but it was a close-run thing) and gestured us inside.

Eating here was akin to stepping off shore for a while. Appropriate, I felt, in a place that once rivalled Pisa and Genoa in its maritime republic days. The owner gave us a captain-like welcome aboard. The waiters – swarthy, dark-haired young men of impeccable politeness – wore their shirt sleeves rolled tightly above their elbows, like sailors, and busied themselves on deck, bringing menus. Once seated, and when the restaurant tables had all pretty much filled, we set sail.

Though not exclusively fishy, the menu is mostly so. Certainly all of the most interesting dishes have maritime connections. As we read the evening's offerings, the captain brought us a platter of spankingly fresh fish to inspect, boldly claiming that he serves 'the finest fish in all of Amalfi!'

I started with what turned out to be one of the best dishes I've ever eaten in Italy. ('Dishes I've eaten in Italy' raises the bar from the outset, so believe me, this was good.) And like all the best dishes, it was simple. Homemade pasta with swordfish. Tender morsels of swordfish with black olives and capers and slivers of parmesan, tossed through short pasta. (Who said parmesan should never be served with fish? Not the Amalfitani!) There was some chilli in there too, or perhaps it was chilli oil, because the dish had a warmth to it wavering between gentle heat and fierce kick. Utterly superb. Next, an Amalfi classic, apparently – anchovy pie. Not really a pie, but a timbale of little roasted potatoes surrounded by roasted fresh anchovies, accompanied by a plate of grilled peppers. More superbness, and tiny tiny anchovy bones to crunch.

We chose a modestly-priced white wine from just-up-the-road Ravello, and we couldn't have partnered the evening's food better if we'd had a bottomless budget. At the end of the meal one of the happy sailor band brought each of us a complimentary glass of ice-cold liquirizia, like frozen cough medecine, while a guitar player strummed and sang into the night.

Yo ho ho ho, a pirate's life for me. (That's not what he sang. It's just how we felt.)

Da Baracca, Piazza dei Dogi, 12 (84011) Amalfi

Tel 089 871 285

I can forgive the restaurant for not having a web site of its own when their food and hospitality is this good. They don't need one. Thanks to Google images for the pic.

Il Polivere, Ficulle, Umbria

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Once upon a time there was a pharmacist from Naples and her doctor husband who loved their jobs but wanted a place in the country to retire to when they got older. After much searching, Marta and Michele found an old tumbledown farmhouse set on a hill deep in the Umbrian countryside near Orvieto. It was called Polivere – the place of the free – because in Roman times slaves were granted their freedom here.

Marta and Michele set about renovating the house. They made cool tile floors and mellow stone walls. They built a swimming pool fed by natural spring water. And they planted a vineyard of merlot and sangiovese vines. The surrounding woods were filled with birds and deer and wild boar and, because you could only reach the house by a long and dusty track, Il Polivere was a place of perfect peace.

Marta was so happy that she wanted guests to enjoy this magical place too (and the money would help to pay all those bills), so she opened the house as an agriturismo. Time passed, until an English couple came to stay at Marta's for a few nights one summer, and found it so beautiful that they nearly cried when they had to leave. Each morning they sat in the garden eating breakfast and listening to the birdsong, while puppies played on the lawn. In the afternoon they swam in the pool and relaxed in the sun. And in the evening, when they returned from having something to eat, they sat outside in the darkness sipping Marta's home-made fennel liqueur and wondering how easy it might be to buy a farmhouse in Italy.

Two years later the English couple returned to Polivere, this time with their grown up children, who helped to harvest the grapes. This time Michele was there too, and they tasted wine and talked and ate fresh tomatoes under the clear skies of a summer night. And they all cried when they had to leave.

Like all good stories, this one has a happy ending. Marta is still there, and still welcoming guests, and the place is as beautiful as ever. If you go, though, a word of warning: watch out for the tears when it's time to leave.

Must be something in the air that affects your eyes.

Il Polivere, Strada Chianaiola, 2, 05016 Ficulle (Terni)

Tel 0763 838761

Il Polivere

Medio Evo, Assisi, Umbria

Assisi can be an uncannily peaceful place. Or it can be maddeningly busy, as we found one hot summer's day. The sight of so many nuns, monks and priests in one place can be a bit disconcerting. We had expected things to have calmed down in the evening, but at 7pm Assisi still groaned with tour groups, the car parks below the town full of supercoaches, the streets jostling with tour parties.

We found respite from all this, though, at the restaurant Medio Evo, where we dined in relaxed but refined peace. It was a bit of a surreal evening. For one thing, the otherwise elegant restaurant had a trickling fountain on one wall that would look cheap in a Little Chef. For another, we were the only diners until a party of elderly dinner-suited Italians arrived and took a table, then proceeded to photograph each other repeatedly. We never actually saw them eat, just take photographs.

We did eat, and what we ate was simple but very good. Chicken in a lemon and sage sauce, with some roasted potatoes, then a wonderful cheese selection. Good wine too. Attention is clearly paid to selecting quality produce and ingredients, and the service was knowledgeable and attentive without being overbearing. When we emerged from this oasis of calm back into the Assisi streets it had grown dark, and the crowds had thinned. Enough for us to take coffee sitting outside at a bar in the Piazza del Commune, beneath a clear and starry sky.

Something of the Assisi magic had returned to fill the empty spaces left by the crowds.

Ristorante Medio Evo, Via Arco dei Priori 4 Assisi

Tel 075 813068

Ristorante Medio Evo

Cumpa' Cosimo, Ravello, Campania

Here's one of those restaurants whose reputation goes before it. Online reviews rave over it, mostly, and pay special homage to its owner and figurehead – Netta Bottone, a formidable black-haired lady of seventy-something who seems as much actress as cook. You might gain a different impression from the reviews, but let's be clear – country trattoria full of locals this ain't.

We ate lunch here, having wandered around a Ravello bathed in Autumn sunshine, alternately sleepy then busy as busloads of tourists arrived and departed. In the interval it seemed that most of them had found their way to Cumpa' Cosimo. I imagine that lunch is the restaurant's busiest time, as Ravello, swelled with tourists during the day, quietens down in the evening, left only to its inhabitants and those staying in the town itself. So dinner here may be a calmer, if less atmospheric, experience. At lunchtime there's a slight feeling of pastiche about the place, and it's all a bit production-line: inevitable if you're feeding hordes of tourists with a bus to catch, I suppose.

We were shown through the packed and noisy restaurant to a dining room at the back. Our order was taken by a distracted waiter and served by a surly one. But the food was actually pretty good. To begin, the floral-aproned owner theatrically brought us a 'complimentary' plate of tomatoes, mozzarella and grilled vegetables. Then we ate a meaty, fennely sausage topped with provolone cheese and a cannelloni with tomato sauce. And drank a small carafe of red wine. All accompanied by Godfather-like music from a mandolin player squeezing between the tables.

One of Signora Bettone's antics deserves special mention. Instead of presenting a bill at the end of your meal, she asks each table what they had to eat and drink, then does an eyes-skyward mental calculation and pronounces the total with a shrug in a 'well it should be more, but let's just call it this amount' sort of way. Charming eccentricity or a ploy to confuse you and increase the value of your bill? Up to you. In any event, the signora doesn't seem the type to argue with. And anyway, we'd enjoyed our lunch.

I did see her sneak a look at the bill in her pocket, though, just to be sure she'd got it right. Add businesswoman to cook and actress on her CV.

Cumpa' Cosimo, Via Roma 46, Ravello

Tel 089 857156

Lots of reviews, but strangely no website of its own that I can find. No camera with me either when we visited, so thanks to Google images for the Ravello pic. No, that's not Netta Bottone, but maybe one day she'll have a statue of her own.

Stella Maris, Amalfi, Campania

Everything in the town of Amalfi draws you to the sea. The main road through the town runs precariously alongside it, the bus terminus overlooks it, and from the harbour a myriad of boats ply the coastline. Even the roads high up in the old village tumble inexorably down to it. They say that if you drop a lemon anywhere in Amalfi, it will end up in the sea. Actually they don't say that at all, I've just made it up. But you get the idea.

Inevitably in such a tourist town, restaurants, pizzerie and bars cluster around the sea too, displaying their menus in English and German, as well as Italian. Our instinct tells us in such situations to move back, leave the tourists to it and seek out smaller, more traditional and authentic, and probably less expensive, eating options deeper in the town. But you have to be careful, or sometimes your instinct can simply make foolish food snobs of you.

The Stella Maris is a case in point. It's a largish place set on stilts above a dark, gritty beach, dotted with sunbeds and umbrellas. There's a small interior restaurant, a larger covered terrace and an open terrace of flapping canopies. Four of us arrived early in the evening. Well, more late afternoon, really, but after an early start and a long day, the first of this particular trip to Amalfi, we just needed good food and then comfortable beds. Maybe a walk through the town in between. We set our culinary expectations to average. But we were wrong.

We ordered a bottle of wine, which came with a basket of bread and a bottle of water, and quickly disappeared. As did any worries or misconceptions about the quality of the food, when our meals arrived. A mixed fry starter – with crisp pieces of fish, potato and fish croquettes and seaweed – was excellent. So was a tagliatelle with scampi, cherry tomatoes and rocket. And the fritto misto di pesce included especially delicious pieces of delicate octopus. The food was well-cooked and presented and generously portioned, the service laid back but efficient.

At first I thought the owner was a little on the surly side. But by the end of the evening we were chatting wholeheartedly and he was our new best friend. We watched the sun set over the bay of Amalfi and felt the temperature drop as darkness enveloped the plastic-shrouded terrace of the restaurant. A complimentary limoncello staved off the cold.

Prices were a little steep. But not as steep as the subsequent climb through the town to our hotel, swaggering like pirates, awash with octopus and prawns and seaweed and wine.

Stella Maris, Viale della Regione, 2-00100 Amalfi

Tel 089 872463

Stella Maris

I didn't get a chance to take a photo, so thanks to the restaurant's website for the picture above.

La Piazzetta dell'Erba, Assisi, Umbria

Approached on the road from Torgiano, Assisi appeared above fields of sunflowers and corn, its pink stone refecting the morning sunlight, though dark clouds were already gathering ominously above the hills behind the town.

We parked in one of the out-of-town car parks and walked, well climbed, the short distance into the town, entering at Porta Molano, which opens onto Piazza Santa Chiara, offering glorious views onto the plain below. St Francis didn't look on us as kindly as he might have that morning, as with a rumble of thunder the dark clouds rolled over the town and the heavens opened, delivering torrential rain. For around half an hour we huddled beneath a dripping shop canopy as the rain turned the street into a small river. Even the nuns got wet. But once past, the town quickly dried and we walked its length, through the Piazza del Commune and on to the Basilica di San Francesco.

Our lunch choice was at the opposite end of town, back near where we'd started, so by the time we arrived at the Piazzetta dell'Erba after one o'clock, we'd worked up an appetite. We ate inside a brick-vaulted, busy dining room, served by a young waitress with unbelievably thick-lensed short-sighted glasses which magnified her eyes to fairy tale proportions. "All the better to serve you with." A selection of bruschette included the most pungent garlic I've ever experienced (made more potent, I think, by the peppery olive oil), and we also tried a delicious plate of pears with pecorino cheese, walnuts and honey. Then penne al fattore and morsels of tender lamb grilled on skewers, washed down with half a carafe of red wine. The restaurant was quite full but, as tourists, we were in the minority of diners that lunchtime.

This is the kind of place that you find all over Italy and wish you could find more frequently in Britain. Family run, serving good, simple food based on what it can source locally and cook well, and aimed primarily at local people – if a few tourists walk in, that's all to the good. It's not about awards or 'gastro' this or that or fancy presentation. Just excellent food.

And all at a reasonable price.

La Piazzetta dell'Erba, via San Gabriele dell'Addolorata 15b, Assisi

Tel 075 815352

Another one that's internet shy. Doesn't matter when the food's this good.

Pizzeria L'Oasi, San Martino in Campo, Umbria

Sometimes the simplest of places are the most memorable, don't you think?

We were staying at the Hotel Posta dei Donini, tucked away in San Martino in Campo deep in Umbria (see separate post). A lovely hotel, but quite formal, especially in the evening. So if you wanted to relax and avoid dressing for dinner (I always want to relax and avoid dressing for dinner), then you had to leave the hotel. And if you didn't want to drive, your choices were limited. San Martino is a sleepy, workmanlike place that you can walk around in about five minutes.

But we struck gold when we found the Pizzeria l'Oasi. It looked like just a house, with a canopy on the side where otherwise a garage might have been. We were warmly welcomed and eagerly served and, despite being the only non-locals in a place probably unused to many tourists, made to feel very much at home. Seated outside in the warm evening, alongside Italian couples and families, we enjoyed great value, delicious pizza and even better value vino alla spina.

On our final night in the village, our hotel filled with elegantly dressed Italians attending a wedding. The hotel was clearly out to impress, so we left them to it and headed out once more for our by now 'local' ristorante pizzeria. It was Saturday night and the place was buzzing! We shared a pizza primavera, a plate of really delicious fries to which they seemed to have added vinegar as well as salt (perhaps they had been researching British tastes in an effort to make us feel even more at home). When we asked for the bill the owner brought us a gift – a small candle in a glass jar of oil – "to remember our visit". He explained that he was Jordanian, hence the name of the restaurant, and had been in Italy for ten years. Long enough to learn how to make a damn good pizza, obviously.

We said our goodbyes and wandered back to the hotel to find the wedding party in full swing, yet oddly quiet, and the hotel grounds scattered with sharply dressed guests. We retired to bed, somewhat scruffily by comparison. That night I dreamed of eating pizza by a Jordanian oasis, while oil lamps flickered in the desert night.

Must have been all that free-flowing vino.

Pizzeria l'Oasi, Via 1 Maggio, 6 San Martino in Campo, Perugia

Tel 075 609754

No web site that I can find, and hardly any other reviews, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Hotel Marina Riviera, Amalfi, Costa Amalfitana

He cut a rakish figure at the arrivals barrier at Naples airport – slightly built, wearing jeans, a white shirt and dark blazer, sunglasses on his head, pushed back into his greying hair. And holding a paper sign with our name on it. He was our taxi driver, pre-booked to transfer us to our hotel in Amalfi. He loaded our luggage into the boot of the silver Mercedes and we were off.

At first the journey was one of straight, fast roads, as we left Naples and sped southwards. Our driver told us that he had grown up in this part of Italy, but had left some years ago and gone to America, where he had been (he said) a taxi driver in New York. I sat beside him, and as he told his story, he tapped my arm repeatedly for emphasis. After a while he'd had enough of New York, and had decided (he said) to come back to the place he grew up. Now everyone here called him Americano (he said).

After about forty five minutes, we turned off the main road. "Now I'ma gonna takea you ona the mosta beautiful Amalfi drive" Americano promised, in his best Robert de Niro accent. He tapped my arm harder, perhaps to emphasise the delights that awaited us. The road narrowed and became increasingly twisted, until it was impossible to see around each upcoming bend. Americano continued to drive with the same one-handed nonchalance that he had used to negotiate the autostrada, and now occasionally answered his mobile too, sometime talking for several minutes. Sheer walls of stone sped by on our right, whilst the road edge fell away in a scrumble of scree to the deep blue Mediterranean on our left. Periodically Americano would beep and wave to passing motorists, though they never acknowledged the greeting. Disconcertingly, he would tap my arm at the the most difficult point of manoeuvre, to tell me some tale or other. Oh, and he had a particular, almost psychopathic, dislike of oncoming German coaches.

At last we made it to Amalfi, and the more relaxed charms of Marina Riviera. Situated directly on the road that winds through the town, we nevertheless stepped into an oasis of calm and delightful hospitality. Cool tiles, white walls, simple furniture. Our two adjoining rooms had small covered balconies which looked out over the harbour and the town beyond. The breakfast room opened onto a sun terrace with the same view, and breakfast itself was very good, with all manner of sweet and savoury morsels with which to start the day. After dinner in the town, drinks on the restaurant's elevated terrace in the warm evening air, watching the lights of the offshore boats, was a perfect ending to the day.

At the end of our short stay, Americano took us back to the airport. En route we stopped for petrol. I can see him now, standing at the open car door, petrol pump in his hand, waving at the passing motorists, and puffing on a lighted cigarette...

Hotel Marina Riviera, Amalfi (SA), 84011 Via P. Comite, 19

Tel 089 871104

Hotel Marina Riviera

Al Nono Risorto, Venice

Fegato alla Veneziana sounds more romantic, doesn't it, than liver and onions? But that's what it amounts to, and they serve up a fine plate of it in the cosy dining rooms of Al Nono Risorto, just over the bridge from Campo San Cassiano. We stumbled upon it at first, then it became our 'neighbourhood restaurant' when we stayed a week in winter in an apartment at the edge of the square.

The restaurant comprises a series of dining rooms. The first, straight off the street, has a high ceiling, a bar and terrazzo floor tiles reminiscent of a French brasserie. Other rooms are smaller, and lower. When the restaurant is busy it's all bustle and noise and the staff of bright young things, some of whom seem more interested in how they look than what you have ordered, can be distracted. On one occasion when the restaurant was heaving and breaking the sound barrier I ordered fegato but was brought a steak (and a pretty raw one at that).

But don't let that put you off. This place has atmosphere. Enter into the spirit of it all and you'll enjoy it (as long as you don't have sensitive ears). We also ate pizza and pasta and chicken and seafood and other dishes that were excellent and extremely good value. The restaurant owner sat inside the door and checked every bill as diners came to pay – and rounded each one down. Well he did ours anyway. Nice touch.

We've only eaten here in winter, when the adjoining canopied garden was tired and closed, but I can imagine that it's a lovely space in which to eat in the warmer months. On winter evenings the light from the restaurant casts a warm glow onto the pavement outside, making it almost imperative to stop and read the handwritten menu taped to the window.

If you pass and hesitate, go in. You won't be disappointed.

Al Nono Risorto, Santa Croce 2338, Sottoportego di Siora Bettina, Venice 30121

Tel 041 524 1169

Here's another place without its own website. They obviously attach more importance to food than technology, which is fine by me. You'll find plenty of reviews out there though.

Antica Osteria della Valle, Todi, Umbria

If you imagine Umbria to be one big rural idyll, as I once did, the southbound E45 towards Todi comes as a bit of a surprise, flanked by industrial and retail units. I suppose not every Umbrian can be a farmer or an olive grower or a vineyard owner any more than we can all be sheep farmers or farm shop owners in Britain. The complete rural idyll is something of a myth, even here.

But as we headed south, there were increasing glimpses of the gentle Umbrian countryside – densely wooded hills, groves of shimmering olive trees and row upon row of vines, dripping with grapes, awaiting the Autumn harvest. That was more like it. And suddenly there was Todi, a proper hill town, doing what hill towns do best – perching on top of its hill.

Todi itself is a rather unremarkable town when compared with Umbrian neighbours Assisi or Orvieto, but it's a pleasant enough maze of steps and slopes and squares. In the broad piazza, where we stopped for coffee, a road crew was assembling the most enormous stage, with a lighting and sound rig that would do justice to The Rolling Stones. We never found out what this was for, but whatever it was it was going to be loud. Perhaps it was The Rolling Stones.

Persistent searching of the town rewarded us with the discovery of the recommended Antica Osteria delle Valle, where we stopped for lunch. The streetside restaurant was simple and inviting, with a shady canopy above just a handful of outside tables. The day's menu was handwritten and taped to the window (usually a good sign). The attractive young waitress, who may have been the owner's daughter, or may have been here temporarily from eastern Europe, spoke English with a markedly strong, strangely Transylvanian accent. She offered help with the menus. "For eny help viz ze menu you only heff to esk me. But plees, mek sure zat you finish your meal before sunset... oh, look, you heff cat yourself on ze knife... here, let me see..." Sorry, I watched a lot of Hammer horror films as a child. Somehow, Ingrid Pitt has made a lasting impression.

We started with the recommended antipasto della casa – crostini with fondue cheese flavoured with truffles, then a selection of bruschette and some other items which we couldn't identify, but which tasted good nevertheless. Then the pasta della casa – strangozzi with fresh tomatoes and truffles, and I had the beef fillet. The strips of meat were beautifully cooked, meltingly tender and served with rocket, lemon and olive oil, with a scattering of juniper berries on top. The odd whiff of two-stroke from a passing scooter added a certain non so che.

Curiously, there were no mirrors in the toilets...

Osteria delle Valle, 19 Via Ciuffelli, Todi

Tel 075 8944848

The restaurant doesn't appear to have its own website, unless it only comes online after sunset...?

California Park Hotel, Forte dei Marmi, Tuscany

Despite my hopeful expectations, the girl on reception didn't greet our arrival by singing the words 'welcome to the Hotel California'. Spoilsport.

I've no idea what California has to do with this lovely hotel, but I suppose there is a certain 'west coast relaxed' feel to its location – in beautifully landscaped grounds just a couple of hundred metres from the beach. Our room was in a two-storey villa a little way away from the main hotel, near the swimming pool and surrounded by manicured lawns and shady trees. We had our own spacious terracotta-tiled terrace, bordered by jasmine and hydrangea.

This is the kind of hotel where you can't help but relax. We woke later each morning we were here, and did less each day. But the highlight was undoubtedly the food, especially the seafood. Dinner was served in a bright airy restaurant with a vaguely nautical feel. On out first night here we had pasta with scampetti, which was extremely good, then gilthead bream and an excellent veal chop. It was dark when we emerged from the restaurant to enjoy coffee and liqueurs on the terrrace, served by a mature lady with a striking resemblance to the actress Honor Blackman. There were a few families staying at the hotel while we were there, and the sounds of children enjoying themselves in the garden, squeakily making animals out of balloons late into the evening, was a slightly surreal but rather pleasant backdrop to Honor's refined service.

Ms Blackman was in fine form on our last night here, as I found her in the bar tasting varieties of limoncello offered by a handsome young Italian girl whose mother apparently made the stuff. Honor made her selection and put the chosen bottle behind the bar. 'I will reserve this for my best guests...such as this gentleman!' she flattered huskily. We never saw sight of the bottle again.

Our final dinner was again outstanding. Crostini with clams, then a wonderfully flavourful tagliatelle with morsels of langoustine and zucchine flowers. Pasta with aubergine, then roast chicken, which really did taste like chicken! Finally fresh fruit and pecorino cheese.

The taste of that langoustine tagliatelle will stay with me for a long time. Perhaps the song was right. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

California Park Hotel, Via Colombo, 32, I-55042, Forte dei Marmi (LU), Riviera della Versilia

Tel 0584 787121

California Park Hotel