La Gallina d’oro — Restaurant in Volterra

On one of the many winding streets in Volterra, I accidentally stumbled into the Paninotecca Gallina d’Oro. It was quaint and just what I needed. As I approached, the man behind the counter greeted me and my family with a ciao and warm smile - his wife greeted us soon after. I immediately knew that communication was going to be challenging because my Italian is horrible and their English was limited. While waiting to place my order, I noticed that the man was making a cheese and meat tray - it looked delicious! When I got to the counter I made several hand gestures trying to tell the man that I wanted the same thing, he said ok! I also ordered a Entruschi (Tuscan salami, pecorino, arugula and olive tapenade). He asked me several times if I was sure, I said yea totally!! My family also ordered paninos - he double checked again to make sure we really wanted everything!

It turned out that we ordered a TON of food and I think the gentleman was trying to warn us! Regardless, the food was spectacular! The meat and cheese tray was probably one of the best I’ve ever had - one of the salami selections was cervo (deer) and it melted in your mouth. After the trays, we were all stuffed so we took our paninos to go and had them for dinner. They still tasted great.

I experienced a lot of rudeness while in Italy, but NOT HERE!! This was one of the best and friendliest experiences I had while in Italy — the kindness, care and love that the Soldato’s showed us was one-of-a-kind!

The Soldato’s are the owners and are so welcoming and gracious. If you’re in Volterra, make sure to...

Lunchtime, 34 degrees, where to eat in Volterra?

I had the privilege to meet Christian. A Sicilian who was working hard to service the 2-4 tables in the small Paninoteca and me waiting at the counter. He fed me slices of salami🥓 in the meantime. And one more😉.

I decided to sit down and have something to drink🥤 aswell. What a luck I did!

Christian wasn’t only an excellent panini maker, but he was also able to connect his customers, to make them laugh and to make each of us feel extra special with his Italian charmes and humour. 🇮🇹🤩

All of us took pictures to memorize this moment of happiness. 😄

I had the best lunch and my trip to Volterra was a highlight....

We stopped here for a very late lunch reassured that they were still serving their daily specials: the veg soup and tripe. The food arrived in paper bowls, tepid. We sent it to be reheated. There were a couple of small slices of bread drowned at the bottom of the soup, the bread had promptly absorbed all the stock leaving a sweaty-tasting vegetable mass. The dish of tripe also came with bread - the tripe tasted OK, if not special; the bread was proper stale. We paid 17 Euro for the two dishes, which was a lot, considering the low food quality and poor eating experience. The only redeeming detail was that the server spoke very good English and...