Okay,  back to Italy. So far, I have chronicled our meals in the first three cities we visited: Naples, Rome and Florence. From Florence we headed to the small towns of Tuscany. We rented a car from the airport and drove it to an agriturismo just outside San Gimignano, where we spent five nights (I highly recommend the very reasonably-priced Podere Le Grotte). From there we visited a different Tuscan town every day. We’d have a light breakfast in, head out for the day and then come back in the early evening and eat dinner in (cooked by me with ingredients we bought while out). Unsurprisingly, San Gimignano was our port of call on our first day. We did the short drive pretty much right after dropping our bags off, with our eyes first on a late lunch. Not that I’d done so very much research for the places we ate at in the big cities, but I’d really done no research for the Tuscan towns. Our selection process on this first visit to San Gimignano (we went back one more time) was therefore based on three factors: 1) was it close to where we entered the town? 2) was the kitchen open; 2) was the interior air-conditioned? At the intersection of positive answers to all these questions was a place named Magnino, and it was there we ate. And a good meal it was too.

Magnino is many things at once: a bar, a cafe, a bakery, a gelateria, and, yes, a restaurant. The food menu is not over-large and at the center of it is fresh pasta, which appears to be their calling card. Five pastas, a few more small plates, a few pizza by the slice options and dessert: that’s the menu. You can sit inside or out. Even though the outdoor seating was in the shade (well, most of it), we opted to sit inside where it was nice and cool. The decor inside is eclectic and the place as a whole is casual. Only some of the people, inside or out, were eating full meals but that’s what we were there for. What did we get?

We got their caprese, with fior di latte mozzarella; and we got three of the fresh pastas: pappardelle with cinghiale or wild boar ragu (the classic Tuscan pasta); mezze maniche with a white ragu of rabbit with pine nuts; and casarecce with zucchini, sausage and saffron. As always, we got everything to share. We passed on dessert as we figured we would eat some gelato later after walking around the town (we did). A few soft drinks rounded out our order (bread was placed on the table as part of the coperto (cover charge) that is standard in restaurants in Italy.

How was it all? The mozzarella in the caprese was excellent but the tomatoes were just okay. (I hope not to get into trouble for saying this but, on the whole, I was not super-impressed with the tomatoes we ate in salads on this trip.) The pastas were uniformly very good, even if none quite took our breath away. Our consensus favourite was probably the mezze maniche with rabbit ragu. Portions were large and we were all quite full at the end.

For a look at the restaurant and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

All of the above came to 77 euros. That is certainly not a cheap meal but is a very good value, especially when you compare it to what you would pay for something comparable in most parts of the US. That is, assuming you could easily get something comparable. This was quite far from our best pasta-centered meal in Italy but was quite superior to anything available in the Twin Cities, for instance. This is not a slam on the Twin Cities; you’d be surprised if this were not true. It’s almost certainly true as well that you can find far better food in San Gimignano itself. But we were happy enough with this meal.

A few words on San Gimignano in closing. If you’re going to Italy for the first time and relying on prominent guide books and the like, you may see a dismissive attitude towards San Gimignano on account of it being a heavily-touristed town. It is true: it is a very popular town with tourists who don’t want to go more than an hour out of Florence (it’s an easy day trip destination for that reason). But it is, nonetheless, a beautiful and charming town and you should not give it a miss on your first trip to the region just because more jaded travelers prefer towns that are slightly more out of the way. That’s my opinion anyway. We ourselves came back for lunch a few days later (mostly because it was very close to us). More on that meal later in the month.

Alright, on Tuesday I’ll have my next Twin Cities report. This will be of a Thai meal eaten yesterday in St. Paul (though not on University Avenue). More Ireland and Italy after that.