We’ve just returned from a ten-day holiday in northern Italy, which has been wonderful and has filled us both with ideas and plans for the future! Some of it was spent in Gargnano, where Giordano’s mum has a flat with beautiful views of Lake Garda.
Based on our trip, we wanted to share five foodie things with you which we can highly recommend trying during an Italian holiday. If you can think of any more, leave us a comment at the end!
Have a cake breakfast
We have talked before on the blog about the wonders of cake breakfast, and no country does it quite like Italy. On one particularly hot and sunny day we got our walking shoes on and headed to Salionze, the next town over, for a bit of cake and, of course, the perfect Italian coffee to go with it. It was a 6km round trip, and it was well worth the trek – a tiny roll of sponge filled with jam and cream, a chocolate-covered bigne’ (a bit like a small profiterole) with chocolate mousse inside, and a mini fruit tartlet with a gigantic strawberry on top!
Seek out a good pizzeria (or two, or three…)
We lived together for three years close to Lake Garda and, during that time, compiled a fairly extensive list of our favourite pizza parlours in the area. When we arrived in Italy at the start of the holiday we wasted no time in going to our favourite local pizzeria for a “verde e patate”, an extremely thin pizza – so thin it’s probably better to tear it than to cut into it – topped with little cubes of potato and a generous helping of gorgonzola – ‘blue cheese’s sexy Italian cousin’ as someone once said!
In contrast to the pizza mentioned above, we ended the last full day of our holiday by consuming the thickest, doughiest, pizza-iest pizza we could find! It doesn’t even fit on the plate. Amazing!
Have a LOT of ice cream (preferably in a beautiful setting)
This country knows its ice cream, and you’re never too far from delicious gelato while you’re on holiday in Italy. You can try rich and gloopy chocolate, creamy vanilla, a million different varieties of fruit sorbet and a lot more besides (ever tried Smurf flavoured ice cream – gelato Puffo?!). During our holiday we met up with Michele, a friend and the passionate gelataio (ice cream maker) behind Gelateria Borgo Antico in Borghetto; we asked him about his recipes, inspirations and favourite flavours and will be publishing our interview with him on the blog very soon!
Visit Modena
This city is famous for slow food and fast cars (it’s home to both Maserati and Ferrari!), and we love it for so many reasons. It’s found in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy, about an hour from where we used to live, and it’s also the home of the tigella, the bread that gave us the inspiration for our name. We will write about Modena in more detail one day because it’s so important to us, plus it’s full of amazing regional food and beautiful squares!
This time we found a place that makes great panini, Generi Alimentari Da Panino, and specialises in matching the right kind of bread with the perfect filling, all made using premium ingredients. Laura even got to try two vegetarian panini! This one was made with green pesto and fantastic smoked buffalo mozzarella.
Go to an Italian wedding
Ok, we know this is a bit of an unrealistic and silly one, but we’re sure you can imagine the sheer quantity of amazing food you can find at an Italian wedding reception. On the last day of our Italian holiday we were lucky enough to see two of our closest friends get married, and the reception took place at a beautiful villa close to our ‘home’ town. Even before the sit-down meal there was a buffet with amazing fried treats like frittelle (fritters) and mozzarelline (balls of mozzarella fried in breadcrumbs), and during the meal itself the guests ate risotto, ravioli, beef Wellington in peppercorn sauce, potatoes and roasted vegetables. Here’s a great picture – taken by Andrea, the super-talented photographer of Verona Wedding – of the bride and groom and their delicious wedding cake – layers of fresh fruit, cream, sponge and chocolate pieces. It was like a fluffy cloud!
All in all, we had an amazing time – having lots of people to visit and catch up with while you’re on holiday makes everything even more fun. We hope to come back soon, but for now, we have even more exciting plans for Tigellae! Did we tell you we’re going to the United v Bayern all-stars match on the 14th June?
Grazie ragazzi, a presto!
Laura and Giordano
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