Pappa al Pomodoro Pitigliano: A Trattoria That Takes You on a Tuscan Culinary Adventure
The trattoria La Pappa al Pomodoro in Pitigliano is a welcoming restaurant that deserves to be discovered if you are visiting the splendid village of Pitigliano.
The menu
After a pleasant walk in the maze of narrow streets of this wonderful city in the Maremma, you will find a table set with great precision and the classics of Tuscan cuisine. There are all the unmissable dishes of the Maremma tradition: pappa al pomodoro (yay!), pici with Chianina ragù, with wild boar, or even in the cacio e pepe version, stew, Florentine, and peposo.
Ok, ok, they’re not really Tuscan, but this Roman twist on pizze is frighteningly good; there’s no denying it; therefore, purists rest their hearts, and we also eat tonnarelli anyway.
The appetizers are good and delicious: Tuscan cured meats with a spectacular finocchiona, savory and lipidically enveloping crostini with lard and pepper, porcini salad, and other small classic proposals that also range in other regions. Nothing transcendental, but everything is packaged with care, and if you wash them down with a good Bianco di Pitigliano DOC, you’ll make a perfect match.
The meat of both wild boar and chianina obviously plays a fundamental role and is interpreted in a classic way, without frills: the focus is rightly on the quality and juiciness of the raw material, and there is not so much need to work with the imagination. Wild boar stew with juniper, grilled T-bone steak, wild boar, and polenta,
Let’s remember that Pappa al Pomodoro in Pitigliano is a trattoria and has no inclination to make gourmet cuisine; rather, it focuses entirely on simplicity, typicality, and fresh local and seasonal products.
Other important chapters to talk about are mushrooms such as porcini, morels, and sloes. You will find them declined in many dishes, well done, without frills. Salads, first to no end (the pappardelle with porcini mushrooms are excellent), meat, such as fillet with porcini mushrooms, and then mixed croutons with mushrooms or the sautéed mushrooms are also delicious to accompany Florentine style.
In the menu of the day, you will also find dishes that wink at the tourist, such as the classic Italian antipasto with ham, buffalo mozzarella, rocket, and cherry tomatoes, an icon preserved under a dome of 80s cuisine, but it is understandable.
Pitigliano is teeming with tourists, and the spaces are cramped, so even the random tourist, especially if unaware and foreign, must be satisfied with what he expects to find. After all, we all have to survive. In any case, even these tourist dishes are edible and tasty, so you can also opt for a salad, no problem. The form is old-fashioned, but the substance is thick.
Hey, but where did the pasta go? Don’t worry; now we come to the dishes that we liked the most. All homemade, with rough and delicious pasta. Big and luxuriant pappardelle that bloom like roses: splendid those with wild boar and those with porcini mushrooms.
Gnocchi mushrooms and truffles to frame: hearty and full of personality
And then we come to the masterpieces: the pi. Are we monotonous? Perhaps, but these were something crazy: handmade, irregular, long, and irregular, with a dense, perfect, elastic consistency, but above all, you could taste the taste of wheat.
They were perfectly cooked, but compared to the thousand we tried, these stand out; they are on the Maremma podium like pizi.
And the menu has all the toppings it deserves, so you’ll be able to experiment without being disappointed. Delicious pizze all’aglione Cacio e pepe, with truffles, with tomatoes, with white Chianina ragù (amazing), and then the masterpiece that enlightened us immensely: the pici with wild boar ragù: among the best ever eaten in all of Tuscany.
Note: The gnocchi with mushrooms and truffles is, to put it mildly, astonishing.
The desserts are classic, with some local patisserie treats, as the Pitigliano tradition dictates: the Catalan cream is worth mentioning, excellent for a sweet finish to lunch, or the cantucci with Vin Santo Toscano.
The wine list
Simple, but very focused on local Maremma wineries. There are no nasty surprises; everything runs smoothly. The list of whites is more accurate and stimulating; the list of reds is okay.
Service and venue
The restaurant is very welcoming, spartan almost in a monastic style, but very bright and clean on a human scale. The space is small but cleverly managed.
The innkeeper is nice, outspoken, full of anecdotes and patience, when he saw a group of 12 people enter with 7 messy brats he didn’t bat an eyelid and entertained two tables telling the story of Pitigliano , advising us on the best sightseeing tour so as not to waste time.
Prices
Very honest and well calibrated. The dishes are plentiful and prepared as befits a historic trattoria. Salt and pepper are incisive and generously dispensed, but without ever exaggerating and they are also child-proof.