The hillsides and plains of Tuscany are synonymous with wine-growing excellence, but they also furnish quality vegetables, prized truffles and prime meats. For centuries, these ingredients have been celebrated in a regional cuisine renowned for soups, pastas and steaks. Guidebooks will invariably refer to it as hearty, but Tuscany’s fine-dining restaurants, which have proliferated in the last couple of decades, are here to counter any accusations that the region’s dishes are overly rich.
At award-winning restaurants and refined osterie, Tuscany’s deep-rooted traditions of terroir give backbone to plates served with flair and finesse. Primary ingredients are often the stars of culinary creations, and many kitchens draw on nearby or on-site gardens and farms to supply them with zero-kilometre ingredients. Home-grown and international cheffing talent has brought avant-garde ideas to traditional haute cuisine restaurants and has seen the opening of experimental new-wave restaurants, too.
And fine dining is not only flourishing in the elegant cities of Florence and Siena. Chefs are launching ventures in Tuscany’s great wine towns, from Montepulciano to Montalcino, while an unassuming dirt track can lead to a two-starred Michelin ristorante and a celebrated osteria is an island among the Bolgheri vineyards. From these tables, there’s always a feast for the eyes, too, whether it be Brunelleschi’s pioneering dome of Florence Cathedral, a vine-garbed hillside or a distant glimpse of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
14 top fine dining restaurants in Tuscany
Ristorante Santa Elisabetta
Florence
Housed on the first floor of the byzantine Pagliazza Tower, Santa Elisabetta’s seven tables are set in a circular stone-walled room illuminated by a chandelier. This exclusive two-Michelin-starred Tuscany restaurant is headed up by chef Rocco De Santis who has dreamed up a minimalist cuisine exalting primary ingredients. Each dish has a ‘protagonist’ and is characterised by contrasts: cooked and raw; acidity and sweetness. On the menu you might find eel with yakitori, tosazu (dashi vinegar), almond and tarragon or smoked amberjack with Béarnaise sauce, Sorrento lemon jelly and celery.
Angel Roofbar & Dining
Florence
If Florence’s supreme elegance gets a little overbearing, loosen up at Angel on the top floor of Hotel Calimala. Though located in the heart of the historic quarter, surrounded by time-honoured fashion houses, the property is a buzzy, art deco-inspired venture injecting some cool into Florence’s occasionally haughty haute cuisine. In the indoor, bare-brick dining room there is regular live music while the outdoor terrace has lofty views of the city’s marble-clad Duomo. Chef Noam Huber oversees a Mediterranean-Middle Eastern fusion. Expect roasted aubergine with fennel leaves on Lebanese milk bread, sashimi with tomato gazpacho and fermented chilli oil, and toasted ciabatta bread with tartare of 25-day dry-aged beef tenderloin and a date-infused demi-glace.
Campo Cedro
Siena
At Campo Cedro, located just off the tourist-beaten track of Siena, Japanese chef Kohsuke Sugihara brings the delicacy and artistry of food presentation from his homeland and applies it to Italian cuisine. With the plate as his canvas, his ingredients are modelled into dainty forms and colourful displays. Dishes include veal tongue millefeuille with caciocavallo cheese and black cabbage, puffed rice crusted croaker fish with seaweed sauce, and pumpkin and white chocolate cake with masala chai ice cream.
Ristorante Campo del Drago
Montalcino
Two-Michelin-starred Campo del Drago is a masterclass in classic fine dining hidden down a country lane inside the Rosewood Hotel’s Castiglion del Bosco resort. Before a view of vineyard-draped hills and shadowy mountains, diners indulge in course after course of painterly-plated contemporary Tuscan cuisine. Under executive chef Matteo Temperini, the kitchen serves up exquisite dishes of eel with smoked yoghurt and carrots from the estate, blue lobster with samphire and limoncello, and venison ravioli with octopus water and sea fennel.
Lux Lucis
Forte dei Marmi
Situated on the rooftop of Hotel Principe Forte dei Marmi, Lux Lucis boasts floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a landscape caught between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Modena-born chef Valentino Cassanelli describes his food as a ‘free expression of Italian cuisine’ with an emphasis on the suppliers and products of the surrounding territory. Drawing from both land and sea, his dishes include roasted scallop with lamb brain, fichimole (guacamole of figs) and turnip tops, wild duck with banana, horseradish and olives, and risotto with pumpkin saor (a Venetian vinegar and onion dressing), Tuscan soppressata (cured sausage) and barley. The restaurant has a new wine cellar ready for its seasonal reopening in April with a particular focus on small, local producers.
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Ristorante Atto di Vito Mollica
Florence
Dining in Ristorante Atto di Vito Mollica’s fresco-adorned courtyard with its stained-glass roof and a tinkling fountain is a blissful experience. Housed inside the 15th-century Palazzo Portinari Salviati, the one-Michelin-starred Tuscany restaurant’s name means ‘act’ and each course arrives like an operatic masterpiece. Expect regal extravagance in dishes like scampi with a carrot and orange reduction and Champagne sauce, royal oyster with green apple soda and caviar, and hare à la royale with dolceforte (a sauce more traditionally served with wild boar in this part of Italy) and creamy red potatoes. The wine cellar has over 850 labels including historic brands and small producers from the Tuscany region.
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Saporium Firenze
Florence
The city offshoot of Borgo Santo Pietro Saporium, found in the Sienese countryside, upholds the same principles of biodiversity and regenerative agriculture as the rural retreat, earning it a Michelin Green star for sustainability. Vegetables, herbs, honey and cheese come from the nearby organic farm and fermented foods from an in-house laboratory. Chef Ariel Hagen’s team includes a master gardener, a forager, a cheesemaker and a fermentation specialist. The resulting ‘earth to table’ dishes, from snails with grilled chicory and Tuscan garlic to rice with turnip tops and sheep kefir, look like exquisite miniature gardens.
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Particolare di Siena
Siena
Diners can choose from a series of evocative settings at Particolare di Siena. Its vaulted hall features cotto-tiled arches or there’s a cavern with rough stone walls lit up dramatically and a cellar lined with bottles in illuminated diamond-pattern shelving. The food is a modern, fresh take on the regional cuisine using locally sourced ingredients. The fish menu features red prawns with roasted datterino tomatoes and sun-dried orange, and octopus with leeks, olive dust and salmoriglio (a Sicilian lemon sauce), while meat options include Chianina beef carpaccio with olives, capers, mustard mayonnaise or a low-temperature cooked pork shank with Jerusalem artichoke, green apple, spices and Vin Santo sauce.
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Le Logge del Vignola
Montepulciano
Montepulciano is a monument to medieval majesty with a crenelated municipal hall and steep, shaded streets. Along one stone-flagged incline is Le Logge del Vignola with a softly lit, brick-walled interior and tiny terrace outside. The bright dishes arrive at the table with a theatrical flourish – a garnish of smoke, a swirl of sauce or a brief moment aflame. Classics are reinvented, like chicken liver pâté enlivened with coffee bread and a spiced pear and wine sauce, or ribollita soup refined by a black cabbage and black chickpea puff pastry crust.
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Osteria del Tasso
Bolgheri
Osteria del Tasso offers indoor dining in an elegantly restored barn with plum-coloured walls or outside in tree-shaded gardens encircled by Bolgheri vineyards. The food is a contemporary reinterpretation of dishes from the territory with several revived recipes belonging to the Antinori family. Adapted from the great winemaking family’s cookbook is marinated anchovies with Tropea onions, tomatoes and crispy bread, and agnolotto pasta stuffed with three roast meats and served with parmesan fondue and black truffle. Ingredients sourced from the onsite farm are highlighted on the menu, from fallow deer carpaccio to pork ribs served with tempura vegetables. The accompanying wine list has dozens of labels from the onsite Antinori-owned Tenuta Guado al Tasso including its homonymous Bolgheri Superiore DOC, with vintages heading as far back as 2001.
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Ristorante Biagio Pignatta
Carmignano (Prato province)
Presided over by a monumental Medici hunting lodge from the 16th century (guided tours available), Tenuta di Artimino houses guests in the restored 17th-century stables. A short walk away, dinner is served at Biagio Pignatta, a Tuscany restaurant named after Ferdinando I de Medici’s butler. Chef Michela Bottasso has a passion for delving into historic recipe books. Her menu includes dishes like duck breast with carrots, star anise and orange, which recalls the duck à l’orange that Italian-born Catherine de Medici brought to France when she married King Henry II.
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La Rocca
Montaione (Florence province)
Castelfalfi is a historic hamlet turned resort surrounded by nature’s bounty; organic vineyards, olive groves, vegetable plots and beehives provide scenic grounds for guests and prime produce for the kitchens. At Tuscany restaurant La Rocca, meaning ‘fortress’ and named for its location inside the medieval castle, chef Davide De Simone dishes up an aromatic, seasonally inspired cuisine that echoes the colours and scents of nature. The menu includes venison ravioli with sea urchin, turbot with truffle and mandarin, and pear with chocolate, hibiscus and Sichuan pepper.
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Vegan Agrivilla I Pini
San Gimignano
Vegan Agrivilla I Pini is situated in the valley just below San Gimignano, whose medieval ‘skyscrapers’ crown the horizon. Despite the health retreat-esque name, the property with its earthy-toned elegance is much more about laid-back, rural luxury. Wellness and mindful eating are seen as an indulgence not a restriction here. The restaurant is 100% plant-based with a seed-to-table philosophy, but you won’t just be picking through lettuce leaves. The fresh, artfully plated dishes by ‘Lahiri the Vegan Chef’ (who goes by this online moniker) include a hot-pink beetroot gazpacho with garlic pesto and pasta parcels stuffed with chard and almond ricotta.
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Osteria La Dritta
Lucca
Located in the historic centre of Lucca, a city just a beat from Chianti land, La Dritta styles itself as a new-age osteria. You’ll find classic dishes like stuffed pasta, bean soups and steaks restyled with a creative, modern touch. The menu includes the prettily-plated millefeuille of potatoes topped with stracciatella cheese and onion, ditali pasta with beans and tiger prawns, and radicchio with leek confit and goat’s cheese. La Dritta recently came first place in Italy’s televised culinary competition ‘4 Ristoranti’.
