Located along a serene and tranquil road with the view of the Tuscan hills lies beautiful Locanda All’Andreas, a traditional Italian Inn featuring a lovely restaurant in its courtyard and a few alluring rooms with enchanting views of the countryside.
Andrea, the owner, welcomed us with the utmost warmth like any Italian would. We’re here to experience authentic cuisine and environment and Andrea’s congeniality definitely didn’t disappoint us. He is originally from Rome where he had a very successful restaurant in the heart of the elegant and luxurious Via Veneto. He is now in retirement of which he achieved his goals of owning a villa with acres of land in Tuscany. And here, in his ultra-delightful recently restored 18th Century Tuscan café, he proudly features the zero-kilometer concept where all of his ingredients are all just within a kilometer away. His restaurant is quite cozy as he prefers a more personal experience with his guests. The Locanda has some rooms upstairs available just in case people feel too much at home and they don’t want to leave. With the most fascinating ambiance, I certainly can relate to that!
Top | PRIMARK
Skirt | ZARA
Clutch | PRADA
Sunglasses | CELINE
Shoes | ISABEL MARANT
We started off with some different cut ham, salami, and cheese served with red wine called Moris, Morellino di Scansano, Vendemmia 2013. There was some air-dried beef with canasta salad, hot mushrooms and slivers of parmesan. The appetizer combination went very well together as everything felt so fresh. Even the olives just popped with enjoyable flavor.
The next course is the secondi where we got to enjoy two pastas and a very unique dish. The first was like lasagna but without any pasta. It had layers of eggplant flan with fresh and luscious Marciano ricotta cheese with tomato sauce. The eggplant was a brilliant substitute as it all went so well together. I didn’t even notice that there was no pasta.
The next ravishing dish was fish spaghetti with some meat sauce and tomato. Andrea shared that the sauce takes 6 hours to make. To no surprise, the sauce is absolutely amazing as there’s so much flavor packed in it.
The last scrumptious pasta dish had some homemade flour pasta with wild boar ragu relished with spicy pappardelle and oil. This delicious ragu took three and a half hours to make. This satisfying dish was quite heavy since the pasta didn’t have any egg in it making completely different yet rich with flavor and texture.
The next delectable course was homemade pappardelle with porcini mushrooms, bresaola (which is an air-dried meat that’s been aged two or three months), hot mushrooms and pecorino mushrooms. This pleasant dish had a very generous amount of mushrooms. If you adore mushrooms, like we do, you will enjoy it.
For dessert we had the traditional Italian tiramisu. It was distinctively creamy, crunchy, and had a strong coffee flavor. We also had a special heavenly hot chocolate cake with ice cream. The menu name didn’t really give it justice as it was actually a chocolate lava cake. We were quite surprised when we took a bite and it had that oozy rich 100% chocolate sauce inside. The exquisite melted chocolate just poured out oh-so-smoothly. This dessert had the classic, mouth-watering, hot and cold experience. We always enjoy these contrasting experiences when we eat well-prepared desserts. When Andrea saw us enjoying his food, he happily boasted: “This is the Italian way!”
Thanks to Locanda All’Andreas | Loc. Poderi, 31/33, 58014 Montemerano, Manciano GR, Italy