Visit Italy - Where and What to eat?

The main characteristic of Italian cooking is its healthy balance, the excellent basic ingredients being simply cooked and retaining their original goodness and freshness. Simple and yet with such a variety of flavors and rich inventiveness in preparation, that even the most demanding gourmet is delighted.

Where to eat?

There are thousands of:

• ristoranti (restaurants): the most formal type of place to eat when one is not in a hurry, sometimes a little fancy and pricy and family-run;
• trattoria: less formal than a ristorante, where local specialties are served;
• pizzeria: is not only for pizza lovers!

Each region has own specialties and recipies, all to discover and to try!!! 

What to eat?

The Italian dishes are different from other country. Of usual Italian people do 3 meal during the day:

• Colazione (Italian breakfast) is quite different from American or English. Colazione is usually light: cappuccino (coffee and milk) and a brioche (sweet pastry), or simply espresso (black-short-strong coffee)
• Pranzo (Lunch), it consists of antipasto (starter) a primo piatto (pasta, rice or soup), a secondo piatto (meat or fish) with contorno (vegetable or salad), then frutta (fresh fruit).
  Finish with espresso and maybe a grappa or amaro (strong digestive liqueur)
• Cena (Dinner) is similar to lunch. Nowadays there is a tendency of having a light lunch, then dinner becomes the major meal.

At last, Italy is famous also for Italian drink, like aperitifs (Vermouth), wines (dessert-wines: Moscato, Malvasia and Marsala or sparkling-wines), beers and a great vaiety of effervescent mineral water.