Last night we had our first ‘Evening Tour of the Frascati Wine Taverns’ of the season! The weather has finally begun to warm up and the evenings are still a bit chilly but spring has definitely arrived! We had a lovely group from Japan on our tour and we wanted to show them the most charming and delicious shops and wine taverns in Frascati’s historic center.
We started with a stop at ‘Purificato’, the lovely little bakery in Piazza del Mercato (the one with the beautiful ‘Miss Frascati’ cookie). There we picked up little blackberry pies to enjoy as a dessert a bit later. Our lovely shop assistant was really excited when a few of the visitors decided to buy some Miss Frascati cookies to take back with them to Japan!
After this, we headed over to one of the food carts in Piazza del Mercato to pick up some ‘coppiette’ or pork jerky and marinated artichokes. We tasted the coppiette there in front of the cart which were super spicy and chewy and required an immediate trip to the water fountain for some water;)
All the food carts in Piazza del Mercato sell the famous Frascati ‘Porchetta’ however we are very loyal to our favorite bakery in Frascati ‘Antico Forno Cerali’ which was the next stop on our tour. We first had a look inside their enormous wood burning oven and then headed next door to their shop to first try their ‘Pizza Bianca’ with ‘Mortadella’ (every child’s favorite after school snack;). Pizza and Mortadella is super salty so we paired it with some of their house Frascati wine which is crisp and refreshing.
We also purchased other wood fired products to take with us to dinner included sourdough bread, prosciutto di Parma, ‘Pecorino Romano’, ‘Pizza Rossa’, Nonna Rosanna’s Wine Cookies and of course ‘Porchetta’!
At this point we had everything we needed for dinner. We took all our products to one of the oldest wine taverns or ‘Fraschette’ in Frascati called Cantina da Santino. The owner Felice greeted us at the door and set a wood table for us with plastic plates, napkins and glasses. We orderd 3 litres (!) of their Frascati house wine for 8 people and we began our feast! We started with Fava beans and the pecorino Romano cheese which is a typical Roman snack in the spring. The fava beans were bought earlier in the day at the vegetable market in Grottaferrata (a nearby town). After this starter, we enjoyed our Porchetta with sourdough bread and marinated artichokes, pizza rossa with prosciutto di parma, and ended with the blackberry pies and Nonna Rosanna’s wine cookies dipped in the wine. I think the group really had a lot of fun! After dinner they tipsily walked back to Hotel Flora where they were staying in Frascati with the twinkling lights of Rome in the distance. Grazie e Baci from The Old Frascati Wine Tour!
