Our classic California sandwich recipe combines a trio of fresh Golden State produce, Monterey Jack cheese, and a creamy ranch-like dressing. A version of this late-century favorite can still be found on deli-counter and sandwich-shop menus throughout California—but the feel-good meal is just as easy to layer up at home.

This recipe first appeared in our April 2011 Sandwich Issue with the story, “Golden State of Sandwiches,” by Betsy Andrews.

The post California Sandwich appeared first on Saveur.

Eating disorders run in my family. Recently, a cousin died of one. It wasn’t just how much he ate but what: cola, chips, and candy round the clock. He basically snacked himself to death on a diet that led to heart disease, diabetes, and other complications. One reason he might have made unhealthy food choices is counterintuitive: He couldn’t stay full. “Food that is mainly carbohydrates or high in sugar is palatable. It goes down easily. It’s lower in volume, or water content, so you can eat a lot before your stomach expands,” explains Cara Harbstreet, a dietitian and the founder of Street Smart Nutrition. “But it doesn’t carry the fiber or other things that contribute to fullness and slow down eating.” 

You know that stuffed feeling after polishing off a steak or a bowl of pea soup? Experts call it satiety. In 1995, Australian nutritionists devised a satiety index to track which foods made us feel fullest. Feeding subjects different foods and monitoring their hunger afterward, the researchers found foods with the lowest satiety were carb-and-sugar bombs. These are delicious, but their dopamine rewards amount to empty calories. 

Foods with high satiety—those that keep you fullest the longest—are “high-thermic,” says food scientist Dr. Taylor C. Wallace, meaning that “muscles in the stomach and intestines take a lot of energy to break them down.” Chief among high-thermic foods is protein. “The body spends almost 30 percent of the calories it takes in from a protein trying to digest it.” 

After protein on the high-thermic scale, there’s fat, which slows the body’s absorption of carbohydrates. Anyone who loves toast slathered in butter knows how fat carries flavor, which begets satiety and satisfaction. Then comes fiber—the roughage that makes whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and legumes harder (in a good way) to digest. High-fiber foods often contain lots of water, which further fills your belly. 

That’s the gist of satiety: There are foods that take their time in your gut, and foods that don’t. “Generally, whole foods make you feel full longer than processed ones,” says dietitian nutritionist Kylene Bogden, a dietitian and functional sports nutrition expert who works with professional athletes. 

But every expert I spoke with cautioned against using the satiety index as a diet plan. Diets, they say, don’t work. “Clinical studies show minimal, if any, effect,” Wallace notes. And the satiety index has only been used in a limited way in labs; it hasn’t been applied to a broad study of actual, everyday behavior, where its efficacy can really be tested.

Still, the concept of satiety is useful. “If you eat a doughnut, and your brain’s happy, you can understand why your stomach still wants a meal. If you eat fish and vegetables, and your body is happy, you know why your brain still wants the doughnut,” says Ariane Resnick, a special-diet chef and nutritionist whose clients have included Gwyneth Paltrow and P!nk. 

Makes sense to me. In a world where celebrities are clamoring for weight-loss short-cuts like taking Ozempic and other diabetes drugs to suppress their appetites, and where others, like my cousin, refuse to take care of their diabetes and go for broke on unhealthful foods, paying attention to fullness seems like a sober and balanced approach to eating. The pros I spoke with have pointers for thinking about the satiety index. 

Don’t mistake satiety for healthfulness. “You could eat a Wendy’s triple cheeseburger without the bun, and that’s high satiety, but it’s not healthy,” says Wallace. “You’ll see weight loss, but did you raise your bad cholesterol or give yourself hypertension?” Satiety can, however, help avoid the pitfalls of calorie counting. “You could starve yourself slamming low-cal Ritz Cracker packs that spike your blood sugar level. Then you’re hungry, can’t lose weight, and have no energy,” says Bogden. “Foods that are slower to digest keep blood sugar more stable.”

Go for satisfaction. Resnick isn’t a fan of steamed vegetables. “Roasted under a chicken or stir fried, vegetables are more appealing,” she says. If you agree with her, then you’re more inclined to eat your veggies with some fat on them. As it turns out, some vitamins are fat soluble; your body can’t access them unless the veggies are glistening in chicken drippings. “So think about what gives you satisfaction as well as nutrition. We do better listening to our bodies than to ideology.”

Diversify your plate. Protein, fat, and fiber: Satiety requires all three. “If one is missing, that leads to hunger,” Harbstreet explains. “You end up dissatisfied and might rummage around for something else to munch on.” That means combining colors, textures, and flavors at every meal as much as possible. 

Resist dogma. “You’ll probably need more than fish and vegetables because, typically, those foods don’t give you the most joy and satisfaction, as they’re not full of sugar, salt, or fat, which are emotional triggers,” says Resnick. “So add a carbohydrate if you like.” If refined carbs (like white bread or pasta) make you happy, start there, then give less-refined carbs (like brown rice and pulses) a try. 

Be proactive. Fully eliminating low-satiety foods is impossible. We aren’t robots, after all. Rather than abstinence, Harbstreet recommends a measured, mindful approach: “If you’re going to a birthday party, be strategic. Have a balanced meal beforehand, then go ahead and eat some cake.” It’s not about hard rights and wrongs. Make your choices on a “cake-by-cake” basis.

Write your own story. Get to know yourself through your eating. “Start with what you normally eat and keep a journal of how you’re feeling, and how full you are, 30 minutes, one hour, and two hours from eating,” suggests Bogden. Did your energy dip? Do you want to eat more? “Then gravitate to higher satiety foods, and journal again.” If journaling is dredging up bad feelings, go see a professional who can help you use satiety and other tools in a way that works for your mind and body. “None are the be-all, end-all,” says Resnick. “Every tool is something to consider to find what’s best for you.”

The post What Is the Satiety Index, Anyway? appeared first on Saveur.

In the early 1800s, at the estuary of Scotland’s River Wick, Sir William Pulteney commissioned a new harbor, creating Europe’s largest herring fishing port. The Pulteney Distillery was established here in 1826, with many fishermen making scotch on the side. The fishery withered out, but the North Sea’s influence can still be found in this whisky. The distillery’s single malts range from 12 to 40 years old, but Old Pulteney 21 Year Old ($135) is a particularly lovely expression. Aged in both bourbon and fino sherry barrels, its orchard-fruit aroma disguises a bracing seaside tang, sharpened by a relatively high 46 percent alcohol. I like to sip it neat, but a splash of mineral water or an ice cube enhances its sweetness, making it a gentle digestif after the holiday feast.

The post One Good Bottle: Old Pulteney 21 Year Old appeared first on Saveur.

For a long time, this song was the ringtone on my cellphone: “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” The guy who sang it, Louis Armstrong, certainly knew, and since the time I was 14 years old, I have too. That’s when my mother, my little sister, and I tagged along on my father’s trip to the National Barrel and Drum Association conference, an annual gathering for the industrial packaging trade, held in New Orleans in 1978. My father promptly abandoned us to Sazeracs and business, but we didn’t need him; the city’s charm chaperoned us through the week. We rode streetcars and paddle steamboats. We crammed in for a jazz show at Preservation Hall. And we ate. I cajoled my mom into the hour-long wait at Brennan’s on a Sunday afternoon so that I could sit in the courtyard next to the cascading fountain and eat poached eggs draped in hollandaise.

Then we had dinner at Antoine’s Restaurant. I ordered pompano, fished from Lake Pont-chartrain and presented in those days grandly encased within a deflating paper balloon—en papillote, according to the waiter, who peeled back the parchment to serve it. The mild white filet was moist and buttery and came gilded with crabmeat, and I felt like the world’s most sophisticated teenager. I have never forgotten that dinner and its elegance, nor how graciously I was treated by a waiter who instructed me how to eat it. It was then I knew that my fascination with the trappings of a good meal was leagues deeper than I had previously realized. New Orleans and its oldest, most classic restaurant revealed to me a piece of myself that has shaped my life ever since.

That meal reappeared like magic while I was editing our celebration of New Orleans cuisine for this issue; I turned a page in the 1971 book American Cooking: Creole and Acadian, a volume in the excellent Time-Life “Foods of the World” series, and there it was, Antoine’s pompano en papillote, the oven-bronzed, heart-shaped parchment enfolding the filet. Looking at it felt, in a way, like a homecoming.

Of course, the truth is that New Orleans is not my home. But I’ve returned there many times, as a college student for Mardi Gras, as a reporter after Hurricane Katrina, as a fan at Jazz Fest, and, always, as a diner, for my very first taste of its cuisine left me forever in its thrall. That’s what a grand meal can do: capture not only your palate, but also your heart. New Orleans is a city full of those experiences; anyone who’s ever eaten there knows what it means to miss it.

The post Heart of New Orleans appeared first on Saveur.

The first thing I did when I heard earlier this week that my friend Molly O’Neill had died was cry. The second thing I did was scrub my Dutch oven.

A legendary New York Times food writer, a cookbook author, editor, ghost writer, memoirist, teacher, events planner, television host, web pioneer, and contributor to countless publications, including SAVEUR, Molly O’Neill was too busy for fussy housekeeping. LongHouse, her grand home in Rensselaerville in New York’s Catskill Mountains, was brimming with folk art and vintage finds. Cookbooks spilled from the shelves and lined staircases. Friends and neighbors barged in at all times. In summer, students overran the place.

In her country kitchen, with its hulking range and its island where she left fruit, mushrooms, and bread heels to dry, shelves bowed under stacks of tableware; jars of local honey and bags of local produce crowded counters; drawers and cabinets were stuffed. It was a scramble to keep up with the dishwashing that followed the constant cooking.

But Molly was fastidious about a few things. She insisted that her knives be washed, dried, and stowed immediately. And she was a stickler for the sparkle on her enamelware. I would often find Le Creuset pots on her stove, boiled water and baking soda working stains from their surface. Their spotlessness was important to the foundation of her cooking. Her freezer filled with gallon containers, Molly was always making stock, pure and concentrated.

So it was with her writing. She was one of the keenest observers of human nature that the food world has been gifted. “I’m fascinated by people’s cooking, but I’m really fascinated by their lives,” she said. What Molly cared about was the emotional foundation—the personal responses to lived experience that made one person’s dish, and one person’s story, so different from another’s. Her writerly attention pure and concentrated, Molly was always taking stock.

In the spring of 2014, Molly took stock of me. I had just left SAVEUR, and she saw in me a potential asset to an enterprise she had dreamed up that combined an online writing school, an immersive residency program for (nearly all women) food writing students, a food festival, and a press. Busy with other things, I was reluctant, but in no time, she lured me upstate and into the free-for-all that was summer at LongHouse.

I started editing the press’s small-format cookbooks. I did a live reporting demo at the festival, LongHouse Food Revival. I taught narrative structure to her summer students. I pinch-hit for her with her online classes. When Molly became ill, I took over as facilitator for a writing residency she had organized at Julia Child’s house in Provence.

Peopled by writers, artists, photographers, chefs, sponsors, farmers and assorted other locals, with Molly’s champion bearded collies underfoot, the proceedings at LongHouse overflowed with art and eats and the student emotions engendered by Molly’s “10-Minute Eggs,” morning writing prompts along the lines of, “Mary had a little lamb and it had a case of separation anxiety. This morning, settle into your chair, set your timer for 10 minutes and let Mary tell you what it felt like to be followed around everywhere she went.”

It felt wholly removed from the world of corporate media that I, and she before me, had left. “Well, it’s supposed to be profitable,” she told me.

“Oh,” I thought. “Huh.” She meant to make money, but that wasn’t what drove the endeavor. LongHouse was driven by love—for food and writing, and mostly, community. I was coming off 15 years in the holds of the publishing world, where men helmed the ships, and money was the stormy sea we navigated. But beside the placid lake in Rensselaerville, Molly was focused on each woman who held a pen, and on a food community that could support their writing.

She was always a feminist. She came of age during the women’s movement, and her first cooking job in 1977 was at the Ain’t I a Wommon Club, a Massachusetts collective she co-founded that served “nonviolent cuisine.” There were few women at restaurant stoves in the 1980s. As chef at Ciro’s in Boston, she garnered enough attention to get a writing gig at The Boston Globe. In 1990, she joined The New York Times. There, she wrote with humor and gravitas about the human spirit and its foibles, including her own.

The description of her move to Manhattan that opens 1992’s New York Cookbook, her award-winning compendium of the town’s delicious diversity, exemplifies her style.

Forget about the food; if ever was written the experience of a newbie in New York, this is it. But Molly was a quick study. In short order, she was reporting on the city’s culinary panoply: Hell’s Kitchen’s under-the-radar multicultural strip; the pan-Latin food stands at Brooklyn’s Red Hook soccer fields—revelations to the largely white, middle-class readers of the Times. She covered fad diets and backlash binges and other national food trends; she wrote portraits of everyone from Gloria Steinem to retired librarian Ellen Burr, winner of the Gilroy Garlic Cook-Off.

She hosted PBS’s “Great Food,” won James Beard awards, and published three more cookbooks, including One Big Table, a 600-recipe, coast-to-coast celebration of America’s “tossed salad” of cuisines, with recipes from both chefs and what she called “the glorious American amateur.” Molly was omnivorous and peripatetic because, as she said, “Heck, it’s a big country with a big appetite.”

“This is the thing she taught me as a reporter,” says Dana Bowen, a former executive editor of SAVEUR who worked on Molly’s pioneering 1990s food website, also called One Big Table. “If you’re curious, and you’re willing to say to someone, ‘What is that thing you’re buying, and what do you plan to do with it?,’ you’ll be welcomed into their kitchen.”

And in their kitchen, you won’t just eat; you’ll get to know the person behind the meal. My favorite of Molly’s stories was published in 2009 in SAVEUR. It is a portrait of Frank Reese, Jr., a Kansas breeder of heritage turkeys. So made was he for his vocation, Molly tells us, that as a first-grader, he wrote a sonnet called “Me and My Turkeys.” She visits him at home:

Molly taught her students to carry both a tape recorder for interviews and a notebook for private observations. In this passage, you can see why. The exquisitely wrought details; Reese’s raw and idiosyncratic sharing, and the pattern of his speech; the humor and sadness and passion—all of it expresses his humanity. Combine such poetry with a narrative arc that chronicles the rescue of heritage turkey breeds from extinction, and you’ve got a masterpiece. Teaching at LongHouse and elsewhere, I have always assigned “Rare Breed” to my classes.

It was at LongHouse that I started my third book of poetry. After years of magazine work, it was a return to the foundation of my creativity as a writer. My view of the goldfinches crowding Molly’s neighbor’s plastic bird feeder opens the manuscript. Unlike many in the food world, who assumed that my next book would include recipes or sketches of my culinary travels, Molly understood what I was doing. She had started out as a poet herself. At LongHouse, she broke bread with both poets and food writers. And the poetic details that embody human truths were the ingredients of all her writing, no matter how newsworthy the story was.

Molly had been a creative writer long before she joined newsrooms, so despite her community-building, she craved the solitude that allowed her to write. I worked on poetry at LongHouse in the off season. Alone together in that big building, we didn’t see each other all day. At night, we would share a meal. We were in the Catskills; there were local potatoes. I was unhappy with my latkes, but Molly loved them. I wondered if she was uncritical because she wasn’t Jewish. But the author of New York Cookbook knew latkes better than I. She had revealed Queens-based food writer David “The Latke King” Firestone’s recipe in the book, next to a sidebar on the history of the Lower East Side’s Latke Festival.

Molly was a teacher, and she was generous, a trait she claimed she learned from a neighbor in her Boston days, Julia Child. She took stock of me and pointed out some of my foibles, yes, but always moreso my virtues—as a writer and a cook and a woman getting older in this complicated, human world. “You’re reeeally gooood,” she would tell me, drawing out the vowels, lowering her chin to stare at me eagle-like from under big brows. At a time when I was weighing my future, she gave me the confidence to go my own route, make my own latkes, be a poet and a food writer and whatever other kind of writer I wanted to be. She did the same for everyone of whom she took stock. If you flip through her cookbooks, you’ll find that amounts to a heck of a lot of people.

One of the last times I saw Molly was in winter. She was living by then in upper Manhattan, close to the hospital where she needed to go for frequent check-ups and follow-up procedures. She was working on a new memoir about her illness, called Liver: A Love Story. I stopped at Petrossian and bought some of the luxuries she adored: foie gras, smoked salmon. It was during Hanukkah, so I made her latkes, though, by then, she could eat only one or two. I also brought her chicken soup. Preparing the stock with her in mind the day before, I had cleaned my pot well, then dispensed with my own recipe and used hers for 5-hour chicken broth from The New York Times: two birds, two onions, three carrots, three celery ribs, peppercorns, bay leaves, water, and time.

Toward the end of the simmering, I opened my kitchen door and stood at its chilly threshold gazing at my backyard. I thought about another of Molly’s 10-Minute Eggs: “Set your timer for 10 minutes and look out the window. If the naked branches against the sky were bones, what sort of broth would they make? Season it. Simmer it. Sip it and write down every sensation.”

Then I strained my broth through a fine-mesh sieve and set it to cool overnight. In the morning, I skimmed the fat, as per her instructions. I tasted it. The pure and concentrated foundation of my soup, it was a really good stock, indeed.

The post Molly O’Neill Was My Mentor, Boss, and Friend appeared first on Saveur.

Azul Condesa (Nuevo Leon 68, Condesa; 52/55/5286-6380; azulcondesa.com)
The chef and author of the Diccionario Enciclopedico de Gastronomia Mexicana (Clio, 2000) Ricardo Muñoz Zurita serves flavorful, faithful renditions of Mexico’s regional specialties—Oaxacan black mole, Yucatecan pit-roasted pork, little Tabascan tamales made with the leafy green chaya—at this upscale-casual restaurant in the tony Condesa neighborhood.

Azul Historico (Isabel La Catolica 30, Centro Historico; 52/55/5510-1316; azulhistorico.com)
Ricardo Muñoz Zurita’s third location (the original, Azul y Oro, is on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) is tucked into the airy courtyard of the Palacio de los Condes de Miravalle, a 17th-century edifice turned boutique hotel and chic mall, with artisan shops selling charcuterie, tableware, mezcal, books, and more. The menu is similar to the one at Azul Condesa, except here breakfast is served. A plate of with steak served beneath the century-old laurel trees is a great way to start off the day.

Dulce Patria (Anatole France 100, Col. Polanco, 52/55/3300-3999; lasalcobas.com)
At her restaurant inside the boutique hotel Las Alcobas, chef Martha Ortiz cooks updated Mexican cuisine in fanciful, architectural platings. A salad of baby arugula and cactus flower buds is draped in a purple-tinged violet brittle; a roast chile, sliced from the stem, is splayed like an octopus over sea bass.

El Bajio (Cuitlahuac 2709, Col. Azcapotzalco; 52/55/5341-9889; carnitaselbajio.com.mx)
The rootsy restaurant that the esteemed Carmen “Titita” Ramirez Degollado founded 40 years ago in the working-class barrio of Azcapotzalco is still going strong. Don’t miss the soulful mole de olla, juicy pork, zucchini, and corn on the cob doused in a sweet-hot guajillo chile broth.

Izote (Presidente Masaryk 513, Col. Polanco; 52/55/5280-1671; izote.com.mx)
Renowned chef Patricia Quintana serves gorgeous renditions of traditional Mexican classics, including walnut-sauced, pomegranate seed-strewn chiles en nogadas; tender lamb steamed in banana leaves; and squash blossom soup.

Maximo Bistrot Local (Tonala 133, Col. Roma; 52/55/5264-4291; maximobistrot.com.mx)
Chef Euardo Garcia cooked at Pujol, as well as Manhattan’s Le Bernardin, before opening his cozy Roma cafe, where locavore sourcing meets Spanish, French, and New American influences. The seasonal menu changes daily, with dishes like organic pork rib eye with porcini puree for autumn and grilled snook with artichokes and arugula for spring.

Nicos (Cuitlahuac 3102, Col. Claveria; 52/55/5396-7090; laboratoriocreativo.com.mx/port_web/n/home.html)
Chef Gerardo Vazquez Lugo oversees the kitchen at his family’s gracious 55-year-old institution serving excellent, traditional Mexican dishes, many from historical recipes, such as a rich noodle casserole, sopa seca de natas, from Guadalupe’s Capuchin nuns.

Paxia (Av. de la Paz 47, Col. San Angel; 52/55/5616-6964 and Juan Salvador Agraz 44; Col. Santa Fe, Cuajimalpa; 52/55/2591-0429; danielovadia.com.mx)
Daniel Ovadia likes big, bold flavors and presentations; at his two restaurants downtown and out in the high-rise suburb of Santa Fe, he offers fare such as maguey worms (the nutty-tasting grubs found in the agave plant) with a chile salsa, nopales, and smoked agave hearts or the relatively tame huitlacoche, sea urchin, shrimp, and fried garlic in chestnut cream.

Quintonil (Newton 55, Col. Polanco; 52/55/5280-2680; quintonil.com)
Using carefully sourced local ingredients, Pujol alumnus Jorge Vallejo cooks beautiful, modern Mexican dishes such as the bitter broccolini-like herb huauzontle with Chiapas cheese and a tomato and habanero salsa or Baja clams with a squid ink sauce and borage flowers.

Sud 777 (Boulevard de la Luz 777, Col. Jardines del Pedregal; sud777.com.mx)
At this trendy steakhouse and lounge, chef Edgar Nuñez Magaña serves squash blossom ravioli with a huitlacoche and truffle sauce, Wagyu from Mexico’s Rancho Las Luisas, and other contemporary, globally inspired dishes.

Back to the article Mexico City Star »

The post Travel Guide: Great Restaurants in Mexico City appeared first on Saveur.

The Grand Banks, undersea peaks that rise from the continental shelf southeast of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, were once teeming with cod. Where the nutrient-rich Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream, plankton proliferated, feeding small fish like capelin that, in turn, lured cod. As early as the 1400s, Basque fishermen crossed the Atlantic to fish here, using salt to preserve the cod on the voyage home. Over the centuries, the world’s fleets descended. By 1992, the cod were gone. A moratorium on commercial fishing has been in place since, but the fish have been slow to recover. Today, the cod on your plate comes from Iceland, Alaska, Norway, or elsewhere, but not from the Grand Banks.

The post King Cod appeared first on Saveur.

First, we stopped into the Stardust Casino—decrepit, dirty-rugged, and nearing demolition—and dropped a thousand nickles in the slots. Then we dashed across the Strip to the Peppermill Lounge. With an interior so dimly lit, you feel like you’re hiding in plain site, the Peppermill is a place made for couples—and for couples who aren’t really couples. The latter is the kind of couple we were. She was 30. I was 42. We had met at a party in New York City; we had known each other a couple of weeks. She was destined, a gal from Indiana, for marriage to a nice young man. I was an older woman with a decidedly different future. But, for this one Vegas lark, cobbled together from a limited expense account and my father’s frequent flyer miles, she was just my type. Amid the chrome and the pink and blue neon lights, while a few old men sat on swivel seats and hit the buttons on the electronic poker machines built into the bar, we squeezed in between all the other pairs drinking and necking on the curved couches arranged around an open gas flame that blazed at the center of an electric blue fountain in the middle of the room. We sunk into the crimson pillows, and thigh to thigh, with sweet, bowl-shaped cocktails cupped in our hands, we fell in love for a weekend.

The post What Happens in Vegas appeared first on Saveur.

Viking Martini

After gin is distilled, it must be mixed with water to bring it to a drinkable proof. That water should be as pure as possible, so as not to interfere with the flavor of the spirit’s botanicals. Martin Miller ships their distillate from England to Iceland, where rain and glacial waters collect 30 meters deep, within volcanic aquifers. This clean water goes straight from the ground to the bottle, its surface tension unbroken by purification processes like reverse osmosis. When the distillate is mixed in, this surface tension holds the alcoholic bouquet and burn in check, resulting in a mellow gin.

It’s a happy coincidence that Martin Miller’s is bottled at the same small Icelandic plant where Birkir snaps and Björk liqueur are made. The brainchildren of chef Gunnar Karl Gíslason and sommelier Ólafur Örn Ólafsson of Reykjavík’s acclaimed Dill restaurant, Birkir and Björk are both infused with native Icelandic birch bark and sap, which add a honeyed hue and root beer–like flavor. Newly arrived Stateside, they’re worthy companions for gin or another base spirit in Nordic-inspired cocktails like this one.

See the recipe for the Viking Martini »
See our favorite Icelandic spirits »

The post Northern Spirits appeared first on Saveur.

WHERE TO STAY

Palazzo Bontadosi (Piazza del Comune 19; 39/074-237-9357; hotelbontadosi.com), housed in a 15th-century fresco-filled edifice, is a calming place to stay on Montefalco’s Piazza del Comune.

WHERE TO EAT

The rustic wine bar and shop Enoteca l’Alchimista (Piazza del Comune 14; 39/074-237-8558; montefalcowines.com) offers more than 400 local labels to enjoy alongside fare like bacon cooked in sagrantino and sage.

Chef Maria Luisa Scolastra serves exquisite dishes like pork and juniper berries at Villa Roncalli (Viale Roma 25, Foligno; 39/074-239-1091; villaroncalli.com), an inn converted from a 17th-century hunting lodge.

WHERE TO SHOP

In the nearby town of Bevagna, the picturesque butcher shop Macelleria-Norcineria Tagliavento (Corso Amendola 15, Bevagna; 39/074-236-0897) is packed to the rafters with incomparable salumi, fresh meat, cheeses, and condiments.

WHAT TO DO

Wine tasting is a highlight of any visit here. The website of the Consorzio Tutela Vini Montefalco (consorziomontefalco.it) contains information on, and links to, its 47 member wineries. Many of them have restaurants or offer dining by reservation.

The Lungarotti family maintains the excellent Museo del Vino (Corso Vittorio Emanuele 31, Torgiano; 39/075-988-0200; lungarotti.it), displaying artifacts from Italian winemaking’s roughly 4,000-year history.

Read our feature story Taste of Umbria »

See our favorite sagrantino wines »

The post Travel Guide: Umbria appeared first on Saveur.