Abruzzo food and Abruzzo wine at their abundant best ! Enjoy Sunday lunch at ‘La Quercia’ – it’ll be one of the most memorable meals on your Italian vacation for two !

Sunday lunch is an Italian institution and the unqualified best you'll find within easy reach of your Abruzzo rental villa is at 'La Quercia', an agriturismo in the village of Piane d'Archi. This is not a meal to be rushed. There's no menu. Your waiter will guide you gently through what's on offer. All of it is Abruzzo food at its finest.

Why not start with a selection of antipasti ?

• baked slices of courgette topped with fresh ricotta cheese
• little strips of sweet pepper stuffed with breadcrumbs and garlic
• crispy squares of pizza. Tomato of course - and potato. Never tried it ? It's sublime !
• a couple of different types of salami. One very spicy, the other milder
• a generous plate of Parma ham
• slices of char-grilled aubergine brushed with oil
• Frittata. One plain and one with herbs
• a few slices of cheese
• lots of warm, soft Foccacia

That - literally - is just for starters. You now have a really difficult decision to make. You'll have been told about the day's pasta. All freshly-made of course. There'll be tagliatelle and spaghetti. Probably gnocchi. Maybe chitarra - Abruzzo's very own speciality pasta, like spaghetti - but square instead of round. And ravioli - with spinach and ricotta on our last visit. With these, a variety of sauces. Tomato is always available - at other times of the year, maybe wild boar, or porcini mushrooms, or truffles. 

Here's where the tough call comes in. If you have the pasta, you might not have room for the meat. And you wouldn't want to miss that, would you ? 

• the char-grilled home-made sausages are as delicious as they look
• and so is the char-grilled loin of pork
• and don't even get me started on the beautifully lean leg of lamb, liberally studded with roast garlic.

Yes, the pictures don't lie. We couldn't resist having the meat. And I have a small confession. I was too busy eating at this point to take a picture of the rather tasty potatoes that came with the meat. Sorry.

But I faithfully recorded the dessert…

I think we showed admirable restraint here actually, because we could have had a little sampler plate of tiramisu, pannacotta and something chocolatey. But tiramisu won the day. Just a little, you understand. And we shared.

Then coffee. And because Nicola and his team are the nicest of people, out came the grappa and the limoncello on the house. Or any other liqueur you might have fancied.

And the cost of this feast of Abruzzo food works out at about €17 each with local Abruzzo wine and a couple of bottles of water. It'd have been a bargain at twice the price. And it'll be one of the best meals you'll eat on your Italian vacation for two.

Alas, 'La Quercia' doesn't have a website. They're open every evening except Tuesday - and for Sunday lunch, when it's advisable to book. We'll be happy to make a reservation for you.

(Click on pictures in text for larger images)

And if you'd like to make a little authentic Italian food yourself, why not try this ! 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Eating and Drinking, Where To Go, Daily Life, About Abruzzo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.