Appurtentant to the pastry shop and down a few steps was a dining room with windows flung open to reveal a splendid view of the undulating Val di Chiana countryside. Though the décor was right out of the 1920s, the menu boasted an 1868 origin. My daughter ordered the panzanella, a well-oiled salad of the area's notorious saltless bread tossed with tomatoes and cucumbers. This version was pleasantly vinegary and surmounted with a little heap of chopped raw onions, and it had been carefully shaped into a truncated cone in a topiary style of panzanella we'd never seen before. The tomatoes were as sweet as a sunny day on Mount Olympus.
Other dishes quickly followed, including an octopus carpaccio in which the tentacles had been bound gelatinously together and sliced into what looked like headcheese, and a homemade gnocchi in a subtle pork ragu. The meal for three with many bottles of fizzy water ran less than 50 Euros—and we left refreshed, but unable to find room for the cream-oozing napoleons and dainty cookies that filled the pastry cases. On to the wine bars! Caffé Poliziano Via di Voltaia nel Corso, 27 Montepulciano, Tuscany, Italy
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