Eating vegan on the road: a guide to Italy beyond grilled vegetables

Hi, I’m @martina_stagi, an honorary Florentine by adoption, and ever since I became ‘a vegan in Tuscany’ the question I get most is: can you actually manage to eat out? 

There is no denying that some areas are different from others — some are more attached to tradition (and rightly so), some less — but I SWEAR that being vegan in Florence is not remotely complicated, as far as your stomach is concerned!

Over these summer months I have travelled around several Italian regions and I can report that even where I remembered the struggle to find something that was not ‘pasta with tomato sauce’ or ‘grilled vegetables’, the closed door to plant-based cooking is now a thing of the past. 

So I thought I would leave, for those who prefer to take their holiday in September, a list of places (—> from my profile @ilmio.spaziovegetale ) where I was able to eat without giving anything up, and felt welcome.

Sardinia

1. Almadìa

A warm, welcoming space with special care for the guest. Contemporary yet authentic cooking that finds its balance. Set among the Sardinian hills, Almadìa offers, besides a splendid view, a special kitchen, with vegan options already on the menu or the possibility of adapting dishes that are not strictly plant-based. 

From starter to dessert, fresh, carefully considered dishes, with new pairings that create real contrasts: a citrus beetroot tartare with crisp asparagus and pine nut cream. As someone who does not love beetroot — too sweet for me — I recommend it warmly, because as well as being special in its combinations it has an aftertaste of summer that suits the setting. 

Aglientu, OT

2. RoccaJa

A restaurant serving typical Sardinian food in a panoramic setting that takes your breath away. 

How can you possibly find plant-based options in a restaurant with a typical Sardinian kitchen?

And what about the cheese? 

Well, yes: the restaurant RoccaJa was a lovely surprise. An entirely plant-based section of the menu, with reworked traditional dishes (including the ones that involve cheese). 

Starting with the cheeseboard — plant-based, of course — right through to the star of the show: the culurgiones, Sardinian filled pasta. Stuffed with potato and ‘pecorino’, with a saffron cream. Light and full of flavor, they made me dream and (almost) cry with joy.

Castelsardo, SS

3. L’M Ristorante

A simple restaurant with a special kitchen. With plenty of plant-based choices on the menu, L’M was already a discovery four years ago, when I went for the first time. In an incredible setting, looking out over red mountains that turn marvelous colors at sunset, a menu with plenty of options, simpler ones, with special ingredients such as tofu and seitan alongside pulses and the many sauces for the pasta courses.

The perfect proof that you do not need an over-elaborate kitchen to send people away satisfied. Because a seasonal vegetable tartare with citrus cream, tofu meatballs or seitan escalopes are dishes people love too. 

San Pantaleo, OT

Campania, Ischia

1. Residence ‘La Rosa’

The restaurant of the Residence where I stayed during my holiday. 

Simple but well-considered cooking, with few options per course, changing daily according to what the local suppliers have. 

The care taken here particularly surprised me. From the bean and escarole soup, to the casarecce with three tomatoes, right through to a plate of… grilled vegetables! Yes, but grilled vegetables of a different order, first in quantity and then in variety. 

Home cooking that welcomes you from the moment the little bell rings to announce that ‘dinner is ready’ 

Forio d’Ischia, NA

2. Auras Restaurant 

A romantic atmosphere, a dreamlike setting and refined cooking with a plant-based option for every course. 

A family story is the reason the kitchen at Auras offers plant-based alternatives to its guests. Special, carefully worked dishes such as an Ischia-style escarole roll on a sun-dried tomato hummus, so good and so full of flavor that I wished it would never end; or tagliatelle (a pasta shape almost impossible to find in a plant-based version) with a velouté of yellow cherry tomatoes, courgette flowers and a crisp olive crumb with almond cream. 

A perfect dinner to say goodbye to the holidays, which could only end with a dessert: an almond panna cotta with berries and their coulis.

Lungomare Aragonese, Ischia 

Tuscany

1. CucinaElementare 

A kitchen that mixes Puglia and Campania in the center of Livorno — does it sound like the start of a joke? 

It is in fact CucinaElementare, a restaurant with typical southern cooking and nods to the city that hosts it, and with (plenty of) plant-based options that leave you speechless.

In an equally special setting, CucinaElementare drops you into a family atmosphere, thanks both to the warmth and approach of the staff and to the dishes it serves.

Among the plant-based options, the ‘Positano veg’: a board with plant-based cheeses, puntarelle, chickpea hummus, vegan mayonnaise and slices of puccia, the Salento flatbread; the classic broad bean and chicory dish; and, among the pucce, two options with hummus, cheeses and seasonal and/or grilled vegetables. 

A safe bet. 

Q.re Venezia, LI

Lombardy

1. Polisena, l’altro agriturismo

A safe space, where nature and its cycles are the basis of the choices that shape the kitchen at Polisena. A place that is sustainable for its guests and for the environment, which I would never have expected to find in this part of Lombardy (but which makes me believe anything can happen, and gives me hope).

The kitchen offers plant-based dishes that are original and well thought through, some invented and others traditional but reworked, with ingredients that recall their history.

An example? The ‘casoncello’, the filled pasta of Bergamo, which here they have renamed ‘l’altro casoncello’ — a dish you would never expect to taste again if you are vegan; and the same goes for the canederlo, the bread dumpling, with green beans and fermented lemon.

A place to discover a different way of living, more aware and more respectful, and where ‘different’ ingredients reveal special recipes: have you ever tried a brownie made with a base of azuki beans?

Pontida, BG

Conclusions

In six years I have watched vegan options grow beyond measure. At the beginning, and especially in towns and villages more attached to tradition, there were plenty of ‘I have no idea what you are talking about’ or ‘I do not know how to make you happy’ looks — and just as many bags packed with survival supplies! 

This summer I was pleasantly surprised by the openness I found towards this way of cooking. I cannot wait to discover more places!