Monday 27th August 2012

So, Giles Coren, you’ve formed a view of Tuscany, have you? (See The Times, 25th August 2012)

What is Tuscany? What is it now? What was it then? What hope for Tuscany? Has money wiped it out?

What did Anthony Mottram and I seek in Tuscany in 1976, when we sprang straight from school into Tuscany?  We took  the Molino di Castagnoli for 3 weeks that July at £40 a week.  It was advertised in The Times. The chairs were cut out from barrels. That summer there was a famous drought in England, but in Italy a low Scotch mist and floods. A stream opened up in the Tuscan kitchen and the water supply was washed away. In that kitchen, the table top was marble, as were the rolling pin and the pestle and mortar. We were in there, self-making pasta for lasagne, and the omelette cake, never repeated since. The bedsteads were brass and old, the woods and rural isolation, the little walled vegetable garden where we cut the round pale green courgettes – all were of the very best, not an ugly note. At 4 in the morning we would set off from the Molino to walk the 10 or so kilometres to Gaiole in Chianti for the bus to Siena, Florence or San Gimmini-whiny.

We hadn’t the first idea what we’d find there but I suppose we knew it would all be absolutely top drawer – the art and architecture. The clothes in Italy in those days! Prada hadn’t yet been invented but the simplest person in the street would have a cardy of supreme lamb’s wool.  The men’s trousers! The hair! The looks of the men!

Tuscany was drenched, drenched from floor to ceiling, from head to toe, in quality. Nothing but the best.

As Poor Little Rich Gays how could we not home in?

Later we had a Cortona phase, in a borrowed house the daughter of which rose to great heights in novel-writing. Dear Cortona – quite unspoiled then. That was the other thing – no gentrification, no arse and Earl’s Court and money driving through.

For the rest of the 80s we were away from Tuscany, mainly in the Central and Eastern of Europe, opening up that section to new possibilities.

Not until 1994, was the modern Tuscan era inaugurated for Poor Little Rich Gays. Anthony Mottram rose in Prague through ‘consultancy’ to the level of Tuscan villa with swimming pool. By that time, they were thousands a week.

So Il Poggino was taken. I’ve more to tell you about Il Pogg. Yes, I’ve been back, back to Manderley.

In the late 90s and early 00s, Robin Smallmeal, loathed, Head of Landfill in this country or whatever, nearly wrecked Tuscany with a succession of rock-bottom villas and trips to awful, fancy restaurants. Poor Smallmeal carries the burden of his money whereever he goes. Thank God I fell out with him and the lachrymose ‘partner’ with a vicious streak, Simon Limpney: they met in Newport Pagnell High Street, as Limpney lay weeping outside the solicitors’ offices where it had been made clear Massivebury must go. Smallmeal happened by in his Bentley, on his way to or from a landfill site,  and made it all all right.

I fell into despair of Tuscany. Where was the true Tuscany of superb quality?

Finally we come to the Multi villa epoch of recent years. The villas have gone up and up in cost and scale. Three years’ ago I feared that the Multis would insist on waiters with white coats and gold braid and everything would be Michelin 3 forks.

But no, the Multis have embraced the true Tuscany. They actually preferred the first villa of their five-week spell (they’re still out now). The second the Blond Multi said was equivalent to a Guildford 4 bedroom. The first was more rustic.

And the restaurants! Giles Coren, you are wrong!  The old spirit of Tuscany lives on. Suddenly springing up are restaurants, simple trattorias, run by eccentrics, not for money but for love of food, just giving a little twist to the traditional Tuscan fare, nothing fancy, no nonsense with coulis.

So,Giles Coren, you’d better re-Tuscany at once! Go to Il Papavero at Barbischio. Try the pici (that’s the thick ‘spaghetti’ of Tuscany)  with fried breadcrumbs, a touch of chilli, roasted cherry tomatoes and basil. Take Canto del Maggio at Terranuova, near Montevarchi – outstanding peposo. That’s the beef stew with peppers you depise. Or Il Celliere at Castagnoli (the same Castagnoli as the Molino was of) where they’ve created a mascapone pasta.

Also exceptional are: Il 4 Leone at Florence; the restaurant at Volpaia; osteria de Montegonzi (where Cameron took his last supper before regaining for the riots last year: we’ve heard much about it here. Poor Little Rich Gays sat in his seat)

All absolutely delightful. Yes, Tuscany lives on, not swamped by money, but re-born and glorious with new selfless creative energy.

Il Canto del Maggio, Taken by Us for Ferragosto: It’s a Ristorante

This Restaurant Taken by Us for Ferragosto