Le Marche Food

The mouth watering food of Le Marche exploits the wonderful produce from Marche's fertile farmlands and the Adriatic coast and you will find that you can eat traditional Italian dishes at local marche restaurants at a fraction of UK costs. Alternatively, you can pick fresh organic ingredientsin our gardens and prepare marche recipes yourselves at the villa.

The following are a few of the local marche dishes & cured meats and cheeses on sale at the local markets.

Le Marche fish dishes

Brodetto is a famous fish stew from the Adriatic coast and varies in form from each coastal town. Le Marche's version of Brodetto includes red and grey mullet, cuttlefish or squid (or both), oil, garlic and saffron - served on either fried or toasted bread. Other seafood favorites include the port of Ancona's dried codfish, which is not native to the Mediterranean and local varieties like sole, bream, clams and mussels.

Le Marche meats

Vincisgrassi is the lasagna of Le Marche made with ground pork, mushrooms, tomato and bechamel sauce, sometimes topped with local truffles. Favorite meats include cinghiale (wild boar), pork, veal, rabbit and hare, game birds (quail, pigeon), chicken and goose. Fabrizio, who lives 300 metres from the villa, produces and sells really sweet flavoured prosciutto (ham), porchetta (suckling pig stuffed with fennel and garlic), salamis, ciauscolo (a soft spreadable local salami), sausages and other Marche specialities.

Cheeses from Le Marche

Pecorino cheese, either young or old, fresco or stagionato are also produced locally, as are wonderful ricottas. Michelangelo owned land near Urbino, which produced a cheese named Casciotta which is still made today and has a wonderfully creamy, smoky flavour.

Italian Autumn Fayre

Truffles (tartufi) are another Marche delicacy that are found in many local dishes, the most common in the region being the rarer white truffle, worth many times its weight in gold. Less expensive, but as delicious are the wild forest mushrooms and Porcini found in the late summer and autumn. Truffle hunting trips can be arranged if you visit at the appropriate time of year.

Le Marche desserts

These include a Pizza Dolce, or sweet pizza and Frustenga a cake made with raisins, figs and walnuts. Breaded olives stuffed with spiced meats, olive d'ascolana, originate from Ascoli Piceno, Le Marche and are available as an antipasto in most restaurants. Lentils and other pulses are grown on the Piano Grande in the middle of the Appenines and are often eaten with zamponi (stuffed pig's trotters).

Restaurants in Marche

You will probably notice different names for marche restaurants besides ristorante, such as osteria, trattoria, agriturismo and pizzeria, but rest assured that all serve up a range of great Italian dishes to savour. Sarnano itself is well served by numerous pizzerias, five agriturismi/farms serving rural fayre using traditional Marche recipes and seven osterie/trattorie (well priced and serving rustic dishes). We are fortunate to have eaten at the majority and have listed some of the best on the Restaurant page to help you in your search for a taste of the real Italy.