Amazing Place! Charming atmosphere and the food is so good!…read moreI suggest to everybody the "Ravioli alla Bottarga" dish, because it's wonderful! I will surely go back very soon!

What a marvelous evening! The setting is beautiful, the food exquisite and the staff extremely…read morefriendly and willing to extend themselves to bridge the language gap between us who don't speak Italian and them who don't speak English. We felt very welcome, receiving unasked for extras.

Amazing local experience in Empoli, Toscana. Seafood is their speciality and it's amazing. Griliata…read moremista is their speciality. Francesco the owner is extremely friendly and generous...we will come back.

Great host, great food. The dish for two with seafood was very well done. The tuna steak, the…read moreshrimps; just perfect. They know how to treat their guests in a way that you feel very welcome.

A very lovely spot located on a beautiful street. The mista salad was only fair because of the…read morebitter greens they incorporated into it. The pizza was good but not great and the Branzino was dry. Service was so so, we had to fetch the waiter to take our order. If we had had a great experience we would of course come back tomorrow.

Pretty decent but not over the top good authentic Italian. It tasted more commercialized than…read moreauthentic...especially the pasta.

Best Home Cooked Italian food I have ever had in my life! My Grandmother would slap me with a…read morewooden spoon but I telleth the truth! Went 2 nights in a row! Freshest selection of everything! It's this type of place that makes life worth living! I continue to fantasize about this wonderful eatery Every now and then! Bottom line it's worth flying here just to smell the fabulous cuisine wafting from the kitchen! Do they deliver?

Il Fornacino has an adventurous menu that I was excited to try. Like every restaurant in the area…read moreit offers the traditional Tuscan tagliata di chianina (is there a law?) but there's also rabbit stuffed with veal and truffles and a very on-trend Swiss chard, ricotta, and truffled egg raviolone. I started with the latter, which was delicious -- but the powerful flavour of cheese and the egg yolk drowned out the chard. My wife's potato flan was quite nice, but it arrived buried under a heap of truffle shavings that tasted of nothing in particular. My main was a special of roast suckling pig with potatoes and a savoury tuile made with the pork drippings. The tuile was gratuitous -- a chef-y touch that didn't actually taste very nice. The suckling pig was beautifully cooked but the potatoes were weirdly inconsistent; some crisp and others mushy. Il Fornacino is a good restaurant that would be the best restaurant around in most places, but the five-star bar is set pretty high in Tuscany. But the prices were very modest and the wine selection was great. It's a tremendously good value for what it offers.

A lovely secluded balcony that overlooks a vista seemingly untouched for hundreds of years. The…read morefood was amazing; a truly homemade Italian experience. Plus, the service was kind and helpful.

Great little place, spending the next couple of nights here in Vinci. Stop by chance and wasn't…read moredisappointed. We had the brochette, mixed salad, grilled vegetables-zucchini/egg plant, blue cheese gnocchi and grilled steak with Parmesan and arugula.

This restaurant was an amazing experience for me and my husband. It's off the beaten path and…read moreguarantees and authentic Tuscan experience. This restaurant is family owned and felt exceptionally cared for joining this time. Don't miss it.

it's a really beautiful place , however the food is just the worst, I order filé mignon which was…read morecold and clear that was cooked a day before , I also order rice and vegetables which the rice was also cold and hard , the vegetable had a lot of salt that I couldn't eat. I would NOT recommend

I can confirm what has already been posted here. Yes, it is hard to find (look for the Hausbrandt…read moresign, see pic). Yes, there is in fact a grandma cooking the food (just as Jeff J. said, two in fact). Yes, the food is amazing. Maybe the reason this place is so hard to find is that it is a hidden gem that feels so authentic that you only hear whispers about it. But it is real folks. We started our meal with the fried polenta with ragu. The combination is a meal in itself. You can tell the ragu was fresh and well made because you could see the chunky bits of garlic, mushrooms and meat. The next course was the lasgna. It was rich with the ragu and ricotta. The noodles tasted homemade. It was a delicious dish blessed by a nonna. The last course was the steak Florentine. You can order it by weight. My conversion math may have been off because we got a HUGE cut of porterhouse. But it was absolutely tender and delicious. We enjoyed this delight to the bone. The service was exceptional. We were the only non-Italian folks in the restaurant but we were treated like family. I will also add that while I enjoyed our food selection, I noticed that the pizzas and pork/veal shank were also very popular and looked incredibly appetizing. My only regret is that we found this gem of a restaurant on our last night in Barga. I wish I had more time to taste more of the menu. The family owns another restaurant in Lucca (la Donna Clara) and one that's 3 km away that does seafood.

Writing this review is ridiculously painful because figuring out how we got there and its address…read morewas impossible. Their "webpage" is on Facebook, but their address on Facebook is inaccurate (stating that it's in Lucca city). On the receipt, there are two addresses, their page on TripAdvisor is matches one of the address on the receipt. When I put down the address here, the location on Yelp doesnt seem right. I tried to Google Map this place, but street images were taken in 2011, and this place wasnt opened yet. Long story short, we were driving down from Renaissance Tuscany Il ciocco resort on the SP20 looking for a restaurant, and happened to turn into this one off the side. It seemed like a traditional Italian restaurant you see on TV with cozy red chequered table cloths, a wood fire oven, and ladies behind the counter busy making pizza and pasta for you. We ordered a 4 seasons pizza (6EUR) and a personal sized lasagna (8EUR) - both of which came out of the wood oven! It was so delicious. We came in just before noon and there was only one other table filled but as we were leaving this place filled almost to the max and when we were driving out, people were waiting for our parking spot! WIth a beer and capuccion, our total was only 18.50 for too and we were so full.We really felt it was traditional Italian home cooking - awesome comfort food. We are still wishing to go back!

We sat outside in the grassy area which is filled with all sorts of eclectic furniture and gazed in…read moreseveral directions admiring the view. Music was playing from outdoor speakers and the selections were great, mostly rock n roll from all decades. They are really trying to evoke a relaxed atmosphere. Our server was friendly and spoke English. We ordered a negroni cocktail and a "Negroski" an amusing variant which uses vodka instead of gin. She brought us plates of charcuterie, cheese, stuffed hot peppers, bruschetta and pita. All was very tasty. So we decided to order another beverage, and surprise surprise we received ANOTHER batch of food. Is it impossible to get drunk in Italy? Lol. The only reason we didn't get a third drink is because we were concerned we would get more food, ha ha. Did we finish the food? Yes. Did we go to dinner later? Yes. This place was wonderful and a very pleasant surprise to be located inside a tourist site.