Osterie d'Italia by Slow Food

[Craig Camp]

Without a doubt the most disappointing dining guide I have used in Italy is the Michelin guide. Time and time again I have found overpriced food in an international style often served by a bored staff with an environment and owners that are riding on their laurels. Of course, there are notable exceptions but this does not excuse the expensive disappointments.

On the contrary, the finest restaurant guide I have found in any country (except for the Michelin guide in France) is the Osterie d’Italia guide produced by Slow Food.

For those of you not used to Italian nomenclature, in the past restaurants were basically divided into three groups:

1. Osteria – one step up from eating in someone’s home, but you paid.

2. Trattoria – Casual family dining in a regional style, but organized more like a ristorante than an osteria.

3. Ristorante – More formal and expensive dining.

These definitions often mean nothing anymore. You can find exceptionally serious chefs preparing the most innovative Italian food in places call osteria or trattoria and eat in run down, cheap places called Ristorante. You have to use your eyes and a good guide to know what you are getting into.

The term osteria has been adopted by many of Italy’s most creative young chefs who are presenting personal renditions of regional food. In these types of restaurants you can usually depend on finding outstanding modern regional cooking, excellent wines lists and a more than interesting selection of cheeses.

An example of this is the Osteria dell’Arancio in Grottammare, located on the Adriatic coast in the Marche region. We arrived in Grottammare not knowing where to eat and referred to the Slow Food Osterie guide which led us to dell’Arancio. After a short walk from the sea up into the hills, we found a warmly lit, medieval piazza with a few Roman ruins thrown in for good measure. At the opposite end of the piazza was the Osteria. We entered the warm stone walled dining rooms and were led to our table. We took the only choice on the menu – the ‘degustazione dell’osteria for the bargain price of €33.00 including several antipasti, 2 primi, a secondo (you have 3 to choose from) and dessert with a glass of dessert wine thrown in to boot. Three hours of heavenly eating and drinking followed. The wonderful wine list was packed with excellent wines from the Marche and a broad selection of some of the most interesting (not overpriced) wines that Italy can offer.

To top the evening off in the next dining room we spotted our friends Eleonora Rossi and Marco Casonaletti, owners of Oasi degli Angeli, the premier agriturismo in Marche and winemakers of Kurni, a wine that is the darling of the Italian press and the 4000 bottles they produce a year have rapidly become one of the most collectable wines in Italy. Eleonora is one of the finest young chefs in Marche and this was the restaurant where she chose to eat on their day off. We luckily got to finish off the evening tasting all sorts of cutting edge Italian wines with them along with the outstanding cheese selection offered by the restaurant.

All of this because of the Osterie guide. We are happy to have a long list of similar experiences because of this guide.

I think the problem with the Michelin guide is that its roots in French food and culture are just too deep (and now the British interpretation thereof) and that it has blinders on when it comes to Italy, while Slow Food comes from Italian roots and has a deeper understanding of not only the new trends in Italian cuisine but in the foundation it is being built upon.

The Osterie d’Italia guide comes only in Italian, but is easily used even if you don’t read the language. All of the listings in the guide are recommended (never had one bad one) and the icons used are easy to decipher. The Slow Food Snail emblem denotes the top restaurants in the guide, a bottle of wine means a special wine list and a wheel of cheese signals a unique selection of regional cheeses. Top dishes are noted in red and are easily matched to the menu.

Of course I still use my Michelin guide, but at the end of the year my Osterie d’Italia guide is torn, ear-marked and full of notes and I’m ready for the new edition.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I know it runs against the egalitarian desires of the Slow Food Movement, but this is a book that is desparately in need of a rating system. Sure you can glean a lot of info from it, but you need to read and understand Italian. It would be so much more useful if they rated the places. But then that would stress the individual strengths and weaknesses of the various restaurants and that would go against the communist manifesto that the Slow Food Movement stems from. The other thing about the book, and the movement, is that it glorifies good home cooking beyond what it deserves. This is something else that gets buried in a book that is in Italian and which has no ratings. But aside from the above, it is quite a useful book.

As for Michelin in Italy, well they are looking for a high Italian cuisine. And it isn't that Michelin disappoints, it's that the nuvina cucina movement in Italy has pretty much been a failure when weighed against cusines from other countries. Michelin happens to do a good job of ferreting those restaurants out. It's not their fault they aren't great restaurants. It's pasta remember?

If I can throw in my due lire for a few unusual books, I have one here called Enoteche. It is a list of what appears to be esoteric wine bars all over Itay and it has descriptions of the wines they carry, and the food they serve. The other book I have, which is indipsenspible is " il dizionario dei Gesti Italiani" by Ivo Saglietti, which as the name sounds, is a book of Italian hand gestures. My favorite one is 'non me ne importa."

[Craig Camp]

As for Michelin in Italy, well they are looking for a high Italian cuisine

You can't find something if you don't know what you are looking for.

I disagree with your desire for an exact rating - boring, and I used this book effectivly long before I could read Italian. My menu Italian came a long time before my conversational Italian.

C'mon Steve, lets not have this argument over and over it is not interesting. We respect this food and you don't , so be it, if you don't have something new to add...... Please! Please! not the endless high cuisine story.

It is not fair to drag every conversation about Italian food down into your 'high cuisine' quicksand.

[Sandra Levine]

Thank you, Craig, for this very good tip. I hope to be going to Italy (Veneto and Venezia Giulia) some time this year and was wondering which guidebook might be reliable.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Craig - It is not me who raised the issue, it was you. You said;

"Without a doubt the most disappointing dining guide I have used in Italy is the Michelin guide. Time and time again I have found overpriced food in an international style often served by a bored staff with an environment and owners that are riding on their laurels. Of course, there are notable exceptions but this does not excuse the expensive disappointments."

All I did was explain your disappointment to you. If you were going to praise the Osterie Guide, you didn't have to take a shot at Michelin while doing it. That was your choice, not mine.

As for the ratings, they are not boring. I find numerical scores way more important then any written text can be. Especially when the text is in a language you can't read. And my menu Italian happens to be pretty good. Ratings are a clear and concise way to describe the level of cuisine a place serves, or the level of wine that is being offered. For me the text is only important once it is anchored by the rating. For example, the Osterie Guide has 8 listings in Firenze, none of which I am familiar with other then Cibreo. And I have no way to make out which ones might be better then the others, or which one serves something special. But if one was rated 15, and the others 14 and a few at 13, and they listed a special dish or two, that would be invaluable information that would go ten times further then the 5 paragraphs they typically write about each place which I can't read because it is in Italian.

Sandra - I will lend you my copy. But you better spend 6 weeks at Berlitz first.

[Craig Camp]

It was a beautiful day in Florence, it was almost lunch time and I was hungry. Wanting to walk a bit to take advantage the day, I checked in with the concierge for a restaurant within walking range. After a lovely thirty minute walk I arrived at the trattoria he had recommended. Over an hour later I headed back out into the sun to walk off the outstanding meal I had just had just enjoyed. The day looked even better. Just around the corner was a book shop and I dropped in to pick up a dining guide. Then I saw it. The restaurant where I had eaten had received 14 points while the one just across the street had been awarded 15 points. My day was ruined – a 14 when I could have had a 15. I had wasted a dining experience – there are only so many lunches you get. Now desolate at my loss I wandered the streets………

Then I woke up. I have to stop reading Plotnicki posts before going to bed.

Steve – lets have a quick lesson on reading the Osterie guide to help you avoid those 6 weeks at Berlitz. As you picked Florence lets go there.

Lesson 1 – They pick eight places to eat out of the hundreds of places in Florence. In Italian that means they think those eight places are all very, very good.

Lesson 2 – Out of those eight places they award two the Slow Food Snail. In Italian that means that out of those eight places these two are the best.

Lesson 3 – In the review they list some of the dishes in red. In Italian that means they think those are the best dishes served by the restaurant. WARNING: In many Italian restaurants they list the dishes to be served in Italian instead of English, just like they look in the Osterie guide. The guide actually wanted to print them in English but then you would not be able to find them on the menu without translating them.

Call me crazy, but I think it is hard to really understand and enjoy the food of a different country unless you understand some of the lingo. You don’t need to learn the language – a dictionary is adequate.

Then there are the Michelin Guide ratings in Italy. Steve is right; their Italian ratings are easy to understand:

• 1 Star – The owner speaks English and the food pays homage to France.

• 2 Star – The owner and the waiters speak English and the food is French with an Italian accent.

• 3 Star – The restaurant is in France. The whole staff including the busboys speak English, but not to you.

OK, I’m kidding. There are obviously a lot of wonderful restaurants in the Italian Michelin guide, some of my favorites. However the guide is woefully out of date and often you end up in a tired old restaurant with dull, expensive food. I have never had this experience with the Osterie guide. The food is always at the minimum well made regional cuisine and often reaches excellence.

It is easy to go through Italy without actually touching the culture with Michelin. Not so with Slow Food.

Edited March 24, 2003 by Craig Camp (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Craig - You can't make your point about the Slow Food Guide by trashing the Michelin Guide. If you believe that Slow Food is so great, you need to show its usefellness. I agree it is useful but its usefulness is limited unless you want to eat the same type of meal at every meal.

When I want a meal, it is a function of the type of formality I want at that paticular moment. I might want to sit at a pizzeria and have something light and then gelati, but I might want a formal dinner. One thing the rating systems let you know, and this is regardless of whether it is Michelin or anyone else, is what level meal a restaurant offers. A Michelin star or two, or a Gault Millau rating of 15 or higher, is pretty definitive information about the type of experience you are going to find. The Slow Food snail is not as informative. It just means good food. I need more information before I make my choice. Especially when I am travelling and my days often center around meals. The wrong meal for the circumstances and the day can turn out pretty lousy.

Or for example, if I wanted to sit down and have a very modern Italian meal, say at that restaurant in Rivoli that Heston Blumenthal recommended, how would I find that if I was using the Slow Food Guide? Well the answer is I wouldn't be able to because it isn't in there. I'd have to buy one of the other guides that list it. Or in the Slow Food Guide, the listing for Alba is Tratorria dell Arco, a place that is okay but a bit ordinary, but flipping through it, it seems they do not list Da Cesare which might be the best restaurant in the region (or used to be) and which is a short drive out of town. Or they don't list Tratorria della Posta in Monforte d'Alba which Pete Rodgers on this site raves about.

So yes, I can eat well by using that guide but I have to eat the way they want me to it. There are other valid ways to dine in Italy that I am interested in. The Slow Food organization has placed the process they like restaurants to conform to ahead of other considerations including where you might get the best food tnat isn't according to their standards. I note that in the 8 listings in Firenze, they list only one place that serves a bistecca. No representations as to it being the best one, just that it serves one. I need better info then that because that is one of the mundane things I'd like to know the next time I go to Firenze.

[Craig Camp]

You can't make your point about the Slow Food Guide by trashing the Michelin Guide.

This is trashing? My comments:

There are obviously a lot of wonderful restaurants in the Italian Michelin guide, some of my favorites. However the guide is woefully out of date and often you end up in a tired old restaurant with dull, expensive food.

I think the problem with the Michelin guide is that its roots in French food and culture are just too deep (and now the British interpretation thereof) and that it has blinders on when it comes to Italy, while Slow Food comes from Italian roots and has a deeper understanding of not only the new trends in Italian cuisine but in the foundation it is being built upon.

and a look at the Michelin Italian guide from others:

...and from Francesco:

I find it interesting that while in all other countries I am familiar with (UK and France) Michelin seems to be in broad agreement with the other local guides as to which restaurants are at the top, in Italy there is ample disagreement. Il Pescatore is the only place that gets mentioned in the top tier in all guides (but none of the others put is at the very top) and the other two are not considered better than, say, 20 other restaurants. My personal opinion is that given the standards in France, the lack of 3 stars to Pinchiorri, Vissani and Gambero Rosso is a scandal (for that matter, I find that only 3 restaurants with 3 stars is a scandal as well).

...and from Marcus:

I have to disagree with you regarding the scandal regarding not giving 2 stars to the 3 restaurants that you name. I've eaten at Enoteca Pinchiorri a number of times and would consider it to be no more than a middling to upper middling 2 star restaurant in France. As you know, the chef is in fact French. I used to go because their ultimately great wine list used to be reasonably priced. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. I haven't been to Vissani, but everyone that I know who has been there has actively disliked it. As for Gambero Rosso, I recall that in a recent post, you yourself stated that it was not a restaurant that you particularly liked. In my view, Il Pescatore, where I have eaten once, is marginal as a 3 star restaurant.

...from Peter Rogers:

Our one meal (last year) at Dal Pescatore was singularly disappointing and other highly touted Michelin restaurants, at least when they seem to be trying to imitate the French, have left us at a loss to understand what drives the Michelin inspectors.

...from JJS:

my favourtite in Bergamo is Lio Pelligrini …This gets a higher rating in Gambero Rosso than Da Vittorio (87 to 83 I think or something like that) but no Michelin stars and it is not aiming for any…My Italian friends much prefer Lio Pelligrini as it is more relaxed, and cooks their favourite dishes extremely well. However if you want or need a more elaborate meal with a different feel and a definite Michelin context then Da Vittorio would be a better choice. The food however for me is better at Lio Pellegrini and better value (although certainly not cheap).

...from vmilor:

My experience with Michelin (Italy) is that I do not always agree with them in promotions but agree in demotions(though they are slow in reacting).

[Sandra Levine]

Steve – lets have a quick lesson on reading the Osterie guide to help you avoid those 6 weeks at Berlitz.

Craig -- Steve was advising 6 weeks of Berlitz for me if I decided to use the Osterie Guide, but I don't need them. I'm eager to see the Osterie guide because from what you have described, it focuses on the kind of food and restaurant I would look for in Italy.

[Steve Plotnicki]

But your post is titled;

"Osterie d'Italia by Slow Food"

What does that have to do with Michelin and why do you keep talking about it? No matter how many flaws you point out, they aren't relevant to a discussion about whether the Slow Food Guide does a good job or not. It isn't any better as a guide because Michelin uses parameters that people are unhappy with. But let's be honest, Veronelli, l'Espresso and Gambero Rosso, all pretty much see things eye to eye with Michelin.

Your point about Osterie being good because Michelin, as well as possibly the others, are bad, doesn't follow. You need to defend Osterie on it's own. I have listed a number of things it doesn't do well. You can either respond to them or not. But talking about Michelin doesn't advance your argumert.

If you want to see a very excellent and useful guide, Gambero Rosso printed an English guide to Rome. They really do a good job delineating the types of meals you can have there. That it is in English is a big plus, but even if it wasn't, it's usefulness would be easy to pick up and the format is better then the one in the Slow Food guide.

[Sandra Levine]

How does the book Trattorias of Rome, Florence and Venice by Maureen Fant stack up?

[Craig Camp]

Taking shots at the Michelin guide in Italy is hardly a new sport. I too would go with the Gambero Rosso Guide over Michelin in Italy.

The trouble with you Steve is you only want to live in the Temples of High Cuisine. In that case stay with the guides you mention. I love Italian cuisine from top to bottom – from the panini and beer at the local bar to 4 hour meals at Il Pescatore drinking Gravner. All of these things combine to make a cuisine.

It is not hard to find a guide to lead you to the Temples. It is hard to find the small, interesting places, often in the country or small towns, where chefs make very personal statements with the best of their local ingredients. Many of these chefs have no interest in capturing a Michelin star. These are the restaurants you find in Osterie.

My defense for the Osterie guide is my personal experience. My defense is they write about the food that I am looking for. I have never had a book lead me to so much good and interesting food – the Italian food you hold in such contempt (boring I believe is your most frequent comment). When I eat in Italy I don’t want to be confused as to what country that I am eating in – in Osterie they select Italian restaurants doing Italian food. You’re sure to hate it.

[Craig Camp]

How does the book Trattorias of Rome, Florence and Venice by Maureen Fant stack up?

I have not used this book - here are two consumer reviews from Amazon.

This Book is not Helpful to the Average Tourist

The author seems to know what she is talking about in Rome which is the lagest part of the book. Her recommendations in Florence and Venice seem to be based mostly on hearsay.

Consider this: The book is 274 pages long. The glossary of terms and bibliograpy account for 72 pages. The book does review trattorias but it also reviews expensive restaurants, pizzerias,

gelaterias, wine bars , shops that sell wine and serve light lunches, and wine shops that offer tastings and canapes. There is a lot of detail im this book, but after reading it I decided it was of little practical use to me since I am an ordinary tourist looking for a good place to eat near the attractions I will be visiting on this my third trip to Rome (second to Florence and Venice). Many of the recommendations are clustered in neighborhoods that are somewhat removed. The book is not going on my trip with me... The purchase price was a waste of money.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Best Food Guide to Italy

Last year, my husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon and half of the meals we ate were good using Frommer's and Eyewitness so when we went this year, September 2001 I was determined to make all the meals GREAT. With the help of this book I did. In Rome, we went to four restaurants, all were excellent, Trattoria Claudio al Pantheon (twice), Cul de Sac (a wine bar with light meals) around the corner from the Piazza Navona, a restaurant on the Campo dei Fiori Plaza, Nino's by the Spanish steps and an Enoteca by the Italian Parliment. In Florence, we went to Da Guido's and Trattoria Antellesi (sp.?) by the train station. This book was a MUCH more reliable source than any of our guide books and a fun read, Fant is rather opinionated, but so am I. If you are a foodie like me you won't pass this up, I just wish she'd do a book on more cities, Milan, parts of Tuscany etc.

My only advice is to call the restaurants in Rome first, if you want to go for lunch. Even in Septmeber, we found that some Roman restaurants around the Pantheon listed in the book were closed for lunch. Fant does include a list of restaurants open on Sunday and Monday, which is very useful because lots of restaurants are closed on those days.

Regardless, everywhere we went was excellent and Fant gives you tips on what to order, which were very helpful. ...

Bon Appetit!

[Steve Plotnicki]

Once again, I'm not criticizing the Slow Food Guide for what they do. They do a fantastic job at it. But they don't do everything I need them to do. What that ultimately means is that unless I want to eat the same type of meal at every meal, I have to carry more then one guide book with me. That is a huge no-no when I travel. And at 853 pages, The Slow Food Guide is a chore to schlep around.

The best guidebook by far was Gault Millau in the old days. They would point you to everything from 19/5 point restaurants to places where you could get a simple sterak frittes. That is the type of detail I need when I travel. Political correctness and adhereing to Slow Foods elitest standards isn't much use to me if they do not cover all of the different types of places I want to eat it. And yes, I want all levels, from the simplest pizzeria to the fanciest restaurant. Unfortunately, they don't list that info.

[Craig Camp]

I do carry both Slow Food Osterie and Gambero Rosso in Italy, but then I can just throw them in my car so it is easy for me. As either my laptop or pocket pc is always with me, I also keep listings of my own in a database on my hard drive and and try to be sure to do my homework before I travel. It is difficult to carry multiple guides.

The Osterie guide is big, but if you are bumming around Italy without an exact plan you can find a good restaurant almost anywhere with it.

[robert brown]

I have one entire bookshelf in France devoted entirely to Italian wine, food and restaurant guidebooks that include among the previously unmentioned restaurant ones Il Veronelli, Accademia Italiana della Cucina and two Critica & Guida Golosa (one for Piemonte and one for Lombardia). I believe that Italy publishes quite many more guidebooks than France (and, especially given all the Slow Food publications) books about products and produce.) I find that I buy some of these books primarily for the sake of having then, although the Veronelli and Gambero Rosso have useful maps keyed to restaurant locations. If you can read one Romance language well and have a decent Italian food vocabulary, you can find out what you might want to order (if you have a choice) and arrive at some kind of fairly reliable consensus. The problems are that they give the highest ratings to the same group of “luxe” restaurants and that none of the books seem to have a point of view such as the Gault-Millau in its glory years. They cover so many restaurants that they have many reviewers contributing such that one never knows anything about them or how they might be instructed to evaluate each establishment. One pretty much has to “work” with any given guidebook and see which one comes closest to your taste. Guida de l’Espresso has been the one I have used the longest (I think I started with it when it came out in about 1980. I find it as reliable as any, though kin the tricky region of 13-16/20, I often find them at odds with my evaluations.

I agree with everyone about the Guida Michelin. I don’t think it is “accurate” beyond the law of averages and overrates fussy food while failing to reward fully interesting-prepared regional food. Interestingly, no one has mentioned using Faith Heller Willinger’s “Eating in Italy”. The entries are relatively few, but adequate for anyone making an exploratory trip or limited duration. I have a love-hate relationship with the book, but always take it in the car. When I post my two-night trip to Piemonte that I made a week ago, I will write more about it. But what do people think of this work?

Edited March 30, 2003 by robert brown (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

I have used the Faith Hellinger book. I have even owned it since the first time it was published in that large format soft cover. I think it's a useful book, especially because it actually lists some useful places to stay in that are reasonaby priced, and which are nearby important restaurants. Fred Plotkin has a similar book, and there is a third one I have which I can't quite put my finger on. They all have their pluses and minuses. None are as good as Patricia Wells Food Lover's Guide to France if you ask me because she sifted through the clutter of choices in a region/city and focused in on what the important restaurant meals, and shopping experiences were. You literally could go to a region and stop at almost every one of her suggestions fairly easily. You can't use the other books that way. I'll give you an example. The Willinger book has a listing in Greve a Chianti where someone sells porchetta from a truck on Saturday mornings (I believe that's correct) but you have to read through the section to pick that up. It doesn't go as far as saying, porchetta is a specialty of the region and this is the most famous one..... PW would have had a photo of the truck and nearly filled up a page with the text, and would have changed the dynamic from, should I stop there to I am definitely going to go.

The difference between a good guide book, and a great one, is the great one gives you a passive itinerary for how to eat all of the spcialities in a region. If you take the PW chapter on the Alpes-Maritime, if you took every one of her suggestions you would cover all of the regions specialties. None of the other books are as focused. But then this only works for novices and people who are possibly on their second or third visits.

edited in- The other book I described is "The Food and Wine Lover's Guide to Tuscany" by Carla Capalbo. She is pretty through on her topic. But I don't find it an easy book to use.

Edited March 30, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[Craig Camp]

Robert - thank you for bringing up the Veronelli guides- I think they are all excellent. I Vini di Veronelli Guida d'Oro is the finest and most complete guide to Italian wine in print. The Gambero Rosso wine guide is just rediscovering traditional styled wines while Veronelli has always been able to understand and effectively review both styles.

I have found the Critica & Guida Golosa somewhat useful, if less serious than other guides. His cute little icons are certainly easy to follow if you don't read Italian.

[Steve Plotnicki]

The Gambero Rosso wine guide is just rediscovering traditional styled wines

Speaking of that, what traditionally styled Barolos do you like outside of the big boys?

[Craig Camp]

The Gambero Rosso wine guide is just rediscovering traditional styled wines

Speaking of that, what traditionally styled Barolos do you like outside of the big boys?

Cavallotto Bricco Boschis

Francesco Rinaldi

Poderi Colla

Marcarini Brunate and La Serra

Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate

[Steve Plotnicki]

That's a good start. I've never heard of the Cavollotto. And what are the aging windows for these wines. Same as the big boys? Shorter, longer?

[Craig Camp]

That's a good start. I've never heard of the Cavollotto. And what are the aging windows for these wines. Same as the big boys? Shorter, longer?

You can keep these guys (from a good vintage) as long as your cellar conditions will handle.

I am currently drinking some 78 Marcarini Brunate that is great now, but will continue to improve. I tasted the 96 Cavallotto this week and it is a great wine - it will age as long as any nebbiolo produced.

[Alex F]

Craig

How can I get the restaurant guides that are mentioned above (not the Michelin guide - not interested in that one, it's not that type of Italian food I go to Italy for.)

Is the Slow-Food guide available from Amazon etc or do you have to subscribe? Also is the Rosso one in Italian - sorry if these are dumb questions.

Edited March 31, 2003 by Alex F (log)

[Craig Camp]

You can find the Osterie guide and many other good guides on the Slow Food web site:

Link to Slow Food books

The Faith Willinger book is available through Amazon.

I'll let you know when I find where you can get the Gambero Rosso Guide in the USA. Their website stinks.

Here is a link to the Veronelli ratings:

I Soli di Veronelli

[Bill Klapp]

Being a Type-A personality in the extreme, and having pretty good Italian language skills (at least as applied to food), I started an interesting hobby several years ago: I have created spreadsheets which collate the scores of all major restaurant rating guides for all of the provinces of Italy north of Lazio, and also list the best dishes, addresses, phone numbers and closed days and dates of each. Those guides include Michelin, Osterie d' Italia, Veronelli, Espresso, Piccinardi, Gambero Rosso, Accademia Italiana della Cucina, Willinger, Plotkin, Massobrio's Guida Critica (more or less Piemonte only) and Gault Millau (now outdated). (In the early 90s, I did the same thing for 10,000 wines worldwide for Parker, Tanzer, Wine Spectator and Gambero Rosso to teach myself about wines, and I still maintain a data base of the 1,700 or so best wines on earth.) Using that approach, you can gauge your own palate to that of the critics. I have NEVER had a bad (or even mediocre) meal in Italy using my spreadsheet. Whenever the high scores align, only the death or unannounced departure of a chef is likely to cause my spreadsheet to fail. It reveals that Gambero Rosso/Osterie (having a common publisher and covering two different levels of dining establishments) is probably the most reliable source, followed closely by Michelin (which is the most reliable source for addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and all-important closed days and dates) and Massobrio for the Piemonte. Plotkin and Willinger are good but somewhat outdated at this point, and Plotkin has a real penchant for eating on the cheap, which can be either great or terrible. AIDC and Veronelli both reflect substantial bias and idiosyncratic treatment, although both tend to hit all of the high points. Espresso is better than either, and a notorious "hard grader". Piccinardi, on the other hand, is a fairly easy grader, and has gone to a 10-point scale, which limits its effectiveness in defining quality gradations. Gambero Rosso is also a fairly hard grader, such that an overall score of 75 or better on a 100-point scale pretty much guarantees a good meal. As to Michelin, two things stand out. They are rarely wrong in passing out stars, and reasonably quick to take them away. I can confirm that ristoranti with a French style about them may fare better with Michelin, that a restaurant's ambiance will keep the ratings down regardless of how good the food gets (not a problem with Gambero Rosso, by the way, since its score has components for food, wine and ambiance) and that its "Bib gourmand" rating for typical local places representing good value is becoming increasingly spastic over time, making Osterie even more valuable. That being said, Michelin has still passed out stars to the very best young chefs in my area, the Piemonte, and it is in the hands of those chefs that the future of the outstanding Piemontese cuisine rests. If used as your only source, Michelin may let you down from time to time, especially in its ratings of ristoranti that are neither starred or "Bibs", but if cross-referenced against one or more of the sources listed above, you will generally eat very well in northern Italy.