Several times recently I have read comments about the amount of restaurant research both Roz and ColleenK do before a trip.

Where do you begin? I have never been impressed by restaurant recommendations in guide books, other than food specific books such as Carla Capalbo's Food and Wine Guides.

What are your favourite places (other than Slow Travel) to look?

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Colleen,

I'm with you, Sheena, I bring guidebooks but I don't use them to find where to eat. Besides Slowtrav I look on Chowhound and the Fodor's message board. I usually cut and paste into a document which I then bring with me. I also peruse a lot of blogs. One of our craziest and most favorite dining experiences in Pontevedra, Spain was totally due to a blog... there is no way this place would have ever been in a book.

Actually there is one series of books I like for dining and bar recommendations - the Hedonist Guides. They also include hotels and shopping.

In addition to all the above mentioned by Shannon, I look on egullet.com, too.

I have found chowhound only somewhat reliable but good to read anyway.

For Italy, I like the slow food book--Osteria d'Italia.

Where are you thinking of going, Sheena?

jan

Hi Jan,

Well, as seems to be the norm in our family lately, our plans have changed a bit from the original plan. Terry has decided that he REALLY does not want to spend the 10 days we had planned on the Amalfi Coast. I have ticked off my sister and BIL (a little) by telling them they are on their own for the first week. We will join them for the last three days - I am pretty sure we will stay in Praiano.

The four of us then head down to the Cilento Coast, Santa Maria di Castellabate, for a week with our kids and their significant others. There will be 14 of us celebrating four major birthdays. We are staying at Villa Virginia (one of Summer in Italy's rentals) and apparently the housekeeper is a very good cook and will cook for us including pizza in the woodburning stove. There are several keen cooks amongst us (not me!) so I doubt we will eat out a lot that week - at least not all 14 of us together!

Then Terry and I are going back to Sant'Antonio to have a week of peace and quiet by ourselves.

At the Amalfi Coast I have learned that the little fishing village of Cetara has no less than three Slow Food restaurants. If at all possible I would like to eat at Al Convento there, but I am not sure whether that is reasonable from Praiano.

I would also like a meal in one of the restaurants right on the beach. Interestingly enough I read some really poor reviews of La Gavitella (I can't remember where now) but it is recommended by Carla Capalbo.

I am beginning to wonder whether in fact you get a better meal in one of the fish 'shacks' on the beach rather than some of the higher end places which may be more directed towards tourists.

Shannon, I have been doing the blog search - in fact I have spent hours going from link to link! I have found some really interesting reading.

Osteria d'Italia is a good idea.

Sheena, I agree with all the recommendations for the Slow Food restaurants. That is the source I have used most for Italy.

The problem is that the Slow Food Osterie guide is so fat and heavy, it is difficult to carry along. You can look up the 2006 recommendations online here. I don't think they have put the guides online since then. If anyone knows of any online updates, please pass along the reference.

That site is only in Italian, so although you can probably figure out the name and address of the restaurants, it would help if you can read some basic Italian.

I believe the most recent English translation of the guide is 2007 (at least according to Amazon). There is a 2009 Italian edition shown on the Slow Food website. If you are a Slow Food member, you can get the book for about half price, although you would still have to pay shipping to the US. If you buy the book, you can always copy pages from the area where you are going, rather than carry the whole thing.

The other book that I loved, although it's only for Tuscany, was A Culinary Traveller in Tuscany.

I asked in the France forum a while back if anyone knew of a similar guide to Slow Food for France. I was told that the French Routard guides were very good, and that the English Rough Guides had much the same information. I did find that we got some good recs from Rough Guides for France. For Paris, the Pudlo guide was also a good source.

I also read a LOT of books about an area before we go there (not just guidebooks -- novels, memoirs, etc.). So if I see a restaurant that sounds interesting mentioned in a book, I make a note of it. For example, the book From Here You Can't See Paris led us to a wonderful meal at a little restaurant on our recent trip to the Dordogne.

Of course, recommendations from locals are one of the best sources. There are some regular contributors to Slow Trav (e.g., Americana in Parigi and Happy in Paris) who have steered us to some great meals in France. And the owners of places we've stayed also have given us some good tips.

I would agree though that American guidebooks usually aren't the greatest source of info. Even if the restaurant was a hidden gem when they wrote about it, if the author (I'm thinking Rick Steves especially) is very popular, it will probably be overrun with tourists by the time you get there.

- Roz

P.S. Once when we were staying in the Cilento, we didn't know where to go for lunch, so we asked a policeman we happened to see. He steered us to a place where we had a very good lunch. I'd have to look up my notes, though, to remember the name of it if you want it. (Sorry I never did write a review!)

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Interestingly enough I read some really poor reviews of La Gavitella (I can't remember where now) but it is recommended by Carla Capalbo.

Others may disagree, but I have found the Carla Capalbo book to be quite out of date, and rather useless, for the area south of the Amalfi coast. I'm talking here about restaurant reviews, not her other description. Can't speak for the Amalfi coast, but her book for Tuscany was also out of date three years ago. (Maybe there's a new edition?)

In addition to the above:

I check the Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, and Gourmet magazine sites as they often feature restaurants around the world.

I also asked people in the area. I have found that this has been the best way to find a good restaurant by far!

Hi Sheena,
I have used all the resources that have been listed in this thread but my most trusted and most used recommendations are usually found right here on the ST site (I seem to agree with a lot of STers taste in restaurants-there are a lot of foodies among us ).

I scour the reviews, blogs, travel notes and trip reports for descriptions of fabulous meals. I usually also post a query asking for updated recommendations on people's 3 favorite restaurants in the areas I'm travelling to in the planning stages of my trip. If a particular restaurant surfaces frequently, it's sure to go on my edited list.

Like Shannon, I then cut and paste an edited version of my restaurant list to cut down on carrying around too much stuff. I seldom use travel guide recommendations because I don't know if I agree with their tastes whereas I know I'm on the same wave lenghth as my foodie buddies here on ST (many of whom have already chimed in on this thread )!

Thanks for all of the information. I do use a lot of the resources mentioned - but just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything!

Hopefully this thread will be useful to others.

egullet.com is another great site. They have an Italy forum. You might also see if your favorite Italian cookbook authors, food writers or restauranteurs have websites with recommendations. I love Dorie Greenspan's and David Lebowitz's blogs for Paris, for example.

With any message board, it helps to get to know the group before taking their recommendations. I don't like the recommendations I see on the Fodor's board, for example--I think that's just a group of travelers very different than me. Chowhound is hit or miss for me, though I'm not familiar with their Italy forum, and it might be very good.

I usually get information on restaurants through ST or the Osterie d'Italia book. However, this is usually for backup purposes only. Once I reach my destination I prefer getting recommendations from locals. Or sometimes we'll just walk around and see what looks interesting and off the beaten path. If nothing jumps out at us, I'll use that backup info.

For our last trip (May/June '09)I made an Excel spreadsheet of restaurants using recomendations from all the usual guide books, ST, Chow Hound, Food magazines etc. for Paris I listed the restaurant name, address, arrondissment, cost of a 3 course lunch, where I found the recommendation and miscellaneous notes (ie: authentic bistro, historic, good patio etc). The list for Paris was 2+ pages but it was easy to carry a couple of papers and if we ended up in the 3rd at lunch time we could look at the list rather than pot luck. I did separate lists for the Dordogne, Loire and Belgium. It took some time but turned out to be worth it as we used it several times and were not dissapointed.

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Originally posted by Marian:

quote:

Interestingly enough I read some really poor reviews of La Gavitella (I can't remember where now) but it is recommended by Carla Capalbo.

Others may disagree, but I have found the Carla Capalbo book to be quite out of date, and rather useless, for the area south of the Amalfi coast. I'm talking here about restaurant reviews, not her other description. Can't speak for the Amalfi coast, but her book for Tuscany was also out of date three years ago. (Maybe there's a new edition?)

I can confirm that the Naples and Campania book IS WAY WAY out of date. Many places no longer exist and there are many new places to try as well. That said, it is the ONLY guide I've found for certain parts of Campania (i.e. parts of the Avellino and Benevento areas) and is a good jumping off point.

I usually ask the locals - I have a child, so tend to just stop other families during the evening stroll and ask where they like to eat ;-) Sometimes, we get lucky and see a full restaurant that looks great and we just stop in and make a reservation for the following night (that's my favorite way...to just stumble upon somewhere wonderful!) If you stay in a vacation rental, the owner is usually the best one to ask - they certainly know the local area well and usually have great suggestions.

During our last trip to Florence we found Sandra Gustafson's "Great Eats Italy" to be quite useful. It has sections on Florence, Rome and Venice. It led us to some excellent meals at Zio Gigi and Il Giardino di Barbano, which we liked so well we visited each twice.