During a recent group trip (40 people) to Italy, we stopped for lunch at the Ristorante Primavera in the Catania region. For me the region evoked the Napa Valley area in California.
Ristorante Primavera appears to be a farm-to-table restaurant - I believe that they call it "agriturismo" in Italy. Our Italian tour guide, Dimitri Donati, arranged for us all to have fifteen courses of "small plates" of the various items they regularly serve. It was a great way to try new foods or different approaches to familiar foods. They also gave us red and white wines, water, fruit and cannoli for dessert (the cannolis were awesome - apparently Sicily is famous for them), and also espresso and limoncello. The service was very good.
I loved the building - from the outside it looked like a country villa. Inside there are brick arches (which appear to be old) spanning large open spaces; some walls are stone. There were TVs mounted on some walls although none of them were on while we were there.
Everyone enjoyed our lunch; we had a terrific time seated at long tables together, laughing and talking and eating the good food. read more
