La Mulinella, Ponte Naia, Todi

Vitello tonnato is at once a robust yet delicate dish: cold slices of cooked veal smothered in a smooth, light sauce of tuna, capers, eggs and olive oil. A classic if slightly unusual summer plate. I mention it because the version I was served at La Mulinella was so far removed from this description as to be either a regional variation warranting definition as a sub-species in its own right, or a joke.

A few hundred yards steeply downhill to the south of Todi, a large sports ground dominates the scattering of modern houses that makes up the suburb of Ponte Naia. One house has been turned into a restaurant and sits in a carefully tended garden with shaded tables. This is La Mulinella. On the sunny lunchtime we rolled up, a few local diners - workmen and families - had already taken their seats and were smoking and chatting as the waiter brought bread and water. We ate crostini with mushrooms, a rich chicken liver paté and torta al testo with spinach. Then ravioli with butter and sage and lamb scottaditto. This was all very good, made even better by warm sun and chilled wine. But the vitello tonnato... if I didn't know better, I imagine the conversation between waiter and chef may have gone something like:

Waiter: "He wants vitello tonnato."

Chef: "I don't have any tonnato sauce."

Waiter: "He's English."

Chef: "I have a can of tuna."

Waiter: "That will do."

Chef: "Are you sure?"

Waiter: "He's English."

So the plate put before me was simply two slices of veal topped with with mashed tinned tuna. There may have been a few capers sprinkled on top, I can't remember. Sadly neither my Italian nor my culinary expertise were up to questioning the dish, so I ate it. It was okay, but it was a bit odd. I think I detected a faint raise of eyebrows when the waiter collected my empty plate, which I imagine he returned to the incredulous chef and said "I told you so."

I think (though I may be wrong) that Mulinella means little windmill, though there's no evidence of one. Mind you, there was no tonnato sauce either. But, really, don't take this as a reason not to go: it was very good, and I hope you're luckier with the tonnato than I was.

La Mullinella, Vocabolo Ponte Naia, 06059 Todi, Umbria

Tel 075 8944779

No website of their own that I can find. I don't have a picture of little Ponte Naia, so here's one of big sister Todi.

Le Colombe Agriturismo, Assisi, Umbria

Gina Lollobrigida springs to mind when I occasionally recall our stay here. Actually Gina Lollobrigida quite often springs to mind for no reason at all, but I think that must be my age. We'd driven up an improbably steep dusty track, following discreet wooden signs, to be greeted (well more bumped into really) by the agriturismo's owner, who was just leaving on some brief expedition or other. Now if 'owner of a holiday farm' conjures up a rustic character in shirt sleeves and cord trousers, with weatherbeaten features and rough hands, you're in for a pleasant surprise. The woman that skipped down the steps towards us was in her early forties perhaps, tanned and lean, wearing a crisp striped blouse with turned up collar, fastened one button less than might be expected, white trousers and sunglasses pushed back into her auburn hair. As she leaned into the car her heavy necklace fell forward from her chest and a heady waft of scent instantly cooled the hot air. I felt we'd arrived.

From the tiny hamlet of Rocca Sant'Angelo across the valley from the agriturismo, a thin bell rings at intervals. Other than birdsong and the chirping of crickets, this is the only sound to be heard here on a summer's day beside the pool. I visited the hamlet one hot afternoon; a small knot of buildings tightly tied against outsiders. I saw no people, only their evidence: scattered chairs beneath a sort of gazebo; low voices from an open window; the smell of cooking; a bike propped outside a door. And cats. There were a lot of cats.

Le Colombe itself was peaceful perfection. Our hostess presided over breakfast, making poached eggs more exciting than usual. Most of the time we had the place to ourselves, to laze and potter in between excursions for food. In the evening we'd make the ten minute drive into Assisi to eat, returning in the dusk as bats flitted around the roofs, to sit beneath our loggia until the stars appeared.

Nights were completely silent and star-filled. And occasionally scented with a waft of expensive perfume.

Le Colombe Agriturismo, Localita Rocca S. Angelo, 42/43, 06088 Assisi

Tel 075 8098101

Le Colombe Agriturismo

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 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.

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

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!

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...?

L'Asino D'Oro, Orvieto, Umbria

We'd eaten here before. The first time, a lazy lunch, outside in the little alleyway, of traditional dishes with a twist – like lasagne made with bread instead of pasta. Our return visit to L'Asino D'Oro found chef Lucio Sforza firmly in residence.

It was a warm and busy September Saturday evening. Light and easy-going by day, the old town took on a different, darker personality as night drew in and we picked our way through its arteries to Orvieto's medieval heart. It was no surprise that by 8.30pm, when we arrived, all of the restaurant's outside tables were either occupied or reserved and we were invited to sit at one of only two tables inside.

The room was starkly bare. Pale ceramic tiles covered the walls, which were adorned by two ancient mirrors. The floor was dark wood, the colour of old tobacco. The tables were laid with the same practical paper tablecloths as outside. The only other furniture in the room was a tired blue dresser. Whilst the view through the open doorway to the warmly lit terrace outside was enticing, this room, with glimpses past a dark wicker screen into the kitchen, felt like the inner sanctum.

Signore Sforza spent more time front of house than in his kitchen, roaming from table to table asking, 'Va bene?' and cutting a formidable figure in long black apron and chef's clogs, with cropped grey hair and gaunt, stubble-covered jowls that barely moved when he smiled.

Just one of the dishes I ate was worth the cost of the entire meal: cinghiale dolce e forte – wild boar in a 'sweet and strong' sauce. There was no prettiness about its presentation. Half a dozen pieces – quite large chunks – of wild boar, smothered in a thick sauce so dark it was almost black, and dusted with cocoa. It smelled sweet, with a hint of warm spices. The boar was fork-tender, falling apart in delicious soft strings. There may have been roasted peppers somewhere deep down in the rich and complex sauce. There may have been cinnamon and vinegar. There were definitely pine nuts and chocolate. There were hints of a mole poblano, and again of a rendang... but only distant hints. This dish had firm Umbrian roots and was inextricably the product of Sforza's magic touch. It was quite simply the most delicious thing I had eaten for a very long time.

I also ate a timballo of aubergines and peppers and a dish of chicory and biettone on a bean purée which were good, would have been very good if I hadn't tasted the boar. That wild boar with its wild flavours.

Funny to think that a restaurant this good can get away with calling itself the Golden Donkey.

L'Asino D'Oro, Via del Popolo, 9, 05018 Orvieto (TR)

Tel 0763 344406

Sadly, I only seem to be able to find 'the same old' review websites referring to L'Asino, and as far as I know they don't have their own site. So you'll just have to go there.

STOP PRESS... ACTUALLY YOU CAN'T GO THERE NOW. WELL YOU CAN, BUT LUCIO SFORZA WON'T BE THERE ANY MORE. HE'S MOVED TO ROME AND OPENED A RESTAURANT THERE CALLED... L'ASINO D'ORO.

La Locanda di Desideria, Carnaiola, Umbria

Sometimes you sit in a restaurant and wonder, don't you, if you've made the right choice? This time the choice had been made for us by the owner of the agriturismo where we were staying. She insisted that we eat well that evening and took the liberty to book, on our behalf, a local trattoria in Carnaiola, the next village. (Easy to see across the wooded valley, less easy to reach by road!) The food there was very good, she assured us, as the chef was a Marchigiano who had moved to the area. Chefs from Le Marche are renowned across Italy for their kitchen skills.

Our arrival was observed by curious, giggling children, who seemed not used to seeing visitors from outside their village, let alone anyone as alien as English people. A sign outside the dour stone building said simply 'cibo e vino' – food and wine. The down-to-earth theme was to continue throughout the slightly surreal evening.

The trattoria's owner stood expectantly, and perhaps a little impatiently, at the door and welcomed us with a simple, knowing enquiry – "inglese?" He had a touch of the Marco Pierre White about him; an edge of unpredictability off which he might topple at any moment. You pay attention to people like that. We were led to a small table inside an empty, cavernous room, where the chef's wife sat on a sofa, breast feeding their baby. Their blonde-curled toddler son wandered up and chattered to us at length, oblivious that we couldn't understand him. A swallow flitted around the vaulted ceiling of the restaurant, perching at intervals on the iron tie-rods that held the ceiling together, seemingly unable to find its way out.

The restaurant remained deserted, apart from us, all evening, though we later realised that Italy were playing a World Cup match that night. The menu we were offered was frugal in its choice – first pasta, then meat. But less frugal in its delivery. We ate delicious ravioli in a sauce of pistachio nuts and poured red wine from a chipped jug. The chef and his family sat at the next table and enjoyed the same food. Except they finished first.

Then the meat. A single, huge, pork chop on an old plate. Nothing else. Tender and succulent, simply grilled with a light touch of fennel and garlic and served with its meagre cooking juices. I'd like to say there was a wedge of lemon on the side of the plate, but I don't think there was. I'd also like to say that I've never had a pork chop so good. I can taste it now.

As we pushed back our empty plates, the chef said goodnight and disappeared out of the front door. A motorbike growled into life and he was gone. To watch the rest of the match, probably. We never saw him again. His wife cleared our plates, then settled on the sofa with the children as we finished the wine. I think she forgot we were there. The baby had fallen asleep in her arms, and then she and the toddler, exhausted, fell asleep too, leaving us the problem of how to ask for the bill and exit the restaurant.

I'll leave you to work out how we did it. The swallow was still there when we left, by the way.

Locanda di Desideria, Via Piave, 25 Carnaiola - Fabro (TR)

Tel 0763 839452

La Locanda di Desideria, Umbria

Nonnamelia l'hostaria, Orvieto, Umbria

Orvieto is officially a slow town. A 'cittaslow' as the Italians call it. You can feel it in the streets.

The initiative was founded in Italy (of course) as a spinoff of the now well-recognised Slow Food movement, which itself began as a reaction to the entry of McDonald's into Rome in 1986. Cittaslow is a valiant bid to promote a better way of life, to improve the environment and to resist the intrusion of large franchise stores, and therefore the erosion of individuality. British towns are now being invited to join the more than 30 Italian communities which have taken up the challenge of resisting the frenetic, ever-quickening pace of living and trying to improve the quality of life.

Anyway, the point is I was reading about all this while sitting in this lovely restaurant on the Via del Duomo one lunchtime, waiting for our order. The front doors of the restaurant throw open to the street on warm days or evenings, the dining room is filled with quirky wooden furniture and even quirkier chandeliers, and the young staff is on the ball. The food was pretty good too. We ate here twice. The suckling pig was good, as were the lamb cutlets and the beef straccato. We know the restaurant makes its own bread, because we stumbled inadvertently into the kitchen and found them doing so. The service, as befits a 'cittaslow' was unhurried, but efficient, so that we always had bread or wine or water to accompany conversation between courses.

So it was with some incongruity, in this relaxed restaurant in this slow town, that an American family bustled in that lunchtime anxiously looking at their watches, and the mother, most anxious of all, and apparently concerned that they might miss their rail connection, demanded of the waitress, "How quickly can you make us a pizza?"

Nonnamelia L'hostaria, Via del Duomo, 25 Orvieto

Tel 0763 342402

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Santa Maria degli Ancillotti, Sterpeto, Assisi, Umbria

Leave Assisi by the road to the north-west, past fields of sunflowers if it's in summer. Travel on through the one-horse towns of Tordibetto and Palazzo. After about seven kilometers turn sharply right, signposted Sterpeto, and follow a steep track through silver olive groves until you can go no further. You will have reached the gated kingdom of Santa Maria degli Ancillotti, and you will more than likely be greeted by its 'prince', Alessio Villa.

Alessio reigns over this agriturismo with his family. Father Paolo tends the roses and the chickens, and cures his own salumi. Mother Rosanna bakes bread and cakes and takes care of the fresh pasta, sauces and puddings. Wife Innis busies herself in the kitchen so much that you may never see her. The family is completed by dogs Benito, Attila and Jenny.

We spent three nights here in the early summer. On our first evening, invited to join our fellow guests for a barbecue supper, my heart sank at the prospect of an evening in the company of a bunch of complete strangers. In fact, I was wrong. In the early evening our little band of about a dozen of us, a somewhat motley collection of European stock, gathered awkwardly together on the terrace as the sun sank below Monte Subasio. A large table, big enough to seat us all, was simply laid with plates and cutlery, tumblers and candles. Alessio's family sat on the terrace too, but at a separate table.

Bottles of wine were opened and poured, and the barbecue was lit. First came panzanella. Then more wine. Then, as Alessio periodically turned the barbecue grill with theatrical flourish, came the meat – fat sausages packed with herbs and fennel, meaty pork ribs, and finally steaks, cut thin and lean, all accompanied by a conveyor-belt supply of red wine. As darkness fell and the wine took effect, our little party became closer, a happy band together in this outpost in the Umbrian hills. At some point during the proceedings, for reasons which I still can't remember, I arranged with the elderly German guest sitting beside me that we would go swimming at 7.30 next morning. More wine. And there may have been grappa. We ate, drank and talked late into the chilly night.

Next morning broke bright and clear, save for a drift of white mist hanging over the Assisi plain. The dew still clung to the roses and the dogs stretched themselves in readiness for the lazy day ahead when, at precisely 7.30am, the elderly German lady, in swimming hat and towel, padded across the grass to the pool... and was surprised to find that I was already in the water. Well, I couldn't let the British side down, could I?

For the rest of our stay Alessio insisted on plying us with food. Roasted duck one night (his "mother's favourite dish"), roast rabbit the next (his "wife's favourite dish") were delicious and plentiful. But it was Alessio's breakfasts that were the real stars of his food show. Beneath the canopy of the loggia, the morning breeze wafting the fresh flowers on each table, we were offered freshly squeezed juices that were alive with flavour; the brightest, yellowest of eggs from the farm's own hens, scrambled into deliciously soft mounds, or set with mushrooms and herbs into a soft-centred omelette; home-made yogurt whipped to the lightest, airiest of textures. And coffee, deliciously chewy bread and home-made jams and honey.

Alessio was very good at keeping us within the borders of his kingdom, but charming with it.

Santa Maria degli Ancillotti, loc. Sterpeto, 42 06086 - Assisi (Perugia)

Tel 075 8039764

Santa Maria degli Ancillotti