Experience a truly enchanting holiday in one of my Tuscan Villas
Cooking lessons and wine tour.
Private cooking class in Tuscany, guided tours in Chianti area and wine tasting assisted by “vacation consultant” in comfortable hotels in the heart of Tuscany. Also olive oil tasting combinated with lessons of traditional Tuscan cooking.
A stays to discover the artistic beauties that make up the heart of the region and the secrets.
A bit of Chianti
Stays in an apartment with visits, a guided walk of Florence, food tasting and cookery course. For lovers of good food, a stay in Tuscany not just to taste the most typical dishes of this region, but also to learn to make them with your own hands.
Symposium in Chianti
Learn about wines and oils with professional sommeliers.
Wine and Crystal
Guided tours to the crystal workshops of Colle Val d’Elsa and to a wine cellar.
Bracali Restaurant is simply amazing! It’s a one of the best restaurants in south Tuscany coast.
You’ll be fashinated by the place, the cooking and by the excellent service.
It is not easy to sum up a chefs style in a single word.
Sensations, traditions, culture, respect for the local territory and creatività are essential elemnts when blending tastes with consistency in order to produce a result worthy of note, establish contact with the costomers and comunicate something to them.
The philosphy is cooking as an art in the true sense of the word, it goes beyond merely preparing a recipe and requie creation, structure and presentation.
The restaurant organizes also short cooking course where you can come and learn the secrets of cooking and the art eating well.
Bracali Restaurant
Via di Perolla 2, 58020 Ghirlanda – Massa Marittima GR
Official website: www.bracaliristorante.it
Il “DESCO” in italian it’s a rather elegant, literaty way of saying “table”.
Not table as in four-legged piece of furniture, but rather table as in “the pleasures of the table”. Or put another way, “enogastronomia” and try saying that without salivating.
For the seriously food and wine-addicted, Lucca’s annual celebration of the table returns to the Real Collegio on 14th novembre and then runs every weekend into december. This year we are promised guided tastings, cookery workshops, special guests, musical entertainment, and the active participation of Lucca’s restaurants, (look out for a new guide “I Pellegrini del Gusto”) as well as the usual full range of local produce from arond the region.
Not be missed. More on what to expert in the estende solida weekend programme for 5-8 december in next month’s Grapevine (featuring “Lucca Slow” devoted to the Slow Food campaign and also the now annual invasion of the Scots) but here are some highlights to look out for in november.
14/15 november
Tasting of Colline Lucchesi and Montecarlo red wines; children’s coockery workshop making “i biscotti della Befana”, cookery demonstration by restaurant Gli Orti di Via Elisa; quick course in wine-tasting;
AML and Frog ballet present Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”.
21/22 november
Tasting of Colline Lucchesi and Montecarlo red wines; i “tordelli lucchesi” presentation by the International Academy of Italian Cuisine in Lucca; cookery demonstration by the Resaturant L a Tenuta di San Pietro; introducing the organic wines;
Special guest: Azienda Agricola Matteucci, tasting a new olive oil www.aziendaagricolamatteucci.com
Dance spectacular by Fuoricentro Danza
28/29 november
French wine tasting featuring fine wines from Burgundy; olive oil and bread/olive oil and fish presentations by the International Academy of Italian Cuisine in Lucca; cookery demonstration by restaurant Il Botton d’Oro of San Lorenzo a Vaccoli; and everything you ever wanted to know about cocktails!
Concert by the Scuola di Musica of Borgo a Mozzano; etno/pop/jazz concert by the band 5 km a Sud.
Entrance is free, for the detailed programme in full, see the site: www.ildesco.eu
The Tuscan Chef offers a selection of cooking courses and wine experiences throughout the year.
*
Join the Tuscan Chef on a 6 day residential cooking course at a luxury 17th century Lucchese villa (groups of between 8-12) during the Spring and Autumn each year.
*
Hands-on cooking lessons with The Tuscan Chef at the Gazebo restaurant of the Napoleonic villa hotel Locanda L’Elisa.
*
For small, unique and individually designed courses of one day or a weekend, wine and dine with the Tuscan Chef “at home”; an olive press dating back to the 16th century.
*
Take the Tuscan Chef home with you to your rental villa where he can prepare lunch and/or dinner as well as offer hands-on cooking lessons
*
Tour with the Tuscan Chef on a sensory journey exploring hidden towns and villages, Chianti and Bolgheri vineyards, markets and specialist food suppliers.
Courses are hands-on under the guidance of professional Italian chef, Valter Roman, and also feature guest chefs from around the world including Alvaro Maccioni of La Famiglia restaurant in London. Alvaro is a passionate advocate of using fresh, seasonal produce and traditional methods of cooking. He believes that ‘if a chef cooks like his mother, he is a great chef. If he cooks like his grandmother, he is even greater!’ Valter believes cooking is not just a matter of weights and measures and following a recipe but of feeling and instinct and hands-on experience.