A STUDY DISCOVERS THE TOP ITALIAN RESTAURANTS THAT ALL OF THE TOP ITALIAN FOOD GUIDES AGREE ON. LE CALANDRE, ENOTECA PINCHIORRI AND GAMBERO ROSSO HEAD THE LIST

Picking a restaurant isn’t so easy these days. And, first, one needs to pick the right guide. There is obviously the Michelin guide, a prestigious name with long and international experience; wine lovers enjoy the Gambero Rosso restaurant guide; and then there are also the Espresso, Veronelli and Touring Club Italiano that are considered the top guides to Italian dining. But, among these guides, preferences vary and there isn’t always a unanimous decision on Italy’s restaurants.
The “Italia a Tavola Network”, however, has managed to cross examine all of the guides to come up with the restaurants that received the highest votes all around.

When comparing the votes from all of these guides - whether they were stars, or cents, or points - the highest marks for Italy’s restaurants went to Massimiliano Alajmo of Le Calandre, Annie Feolde of Enoteca Pinchiorri, and Fulvio Pierangelini of Gambero Rosso.

Receiving very similar scores in all five of the “super guides”, these three historic restaurants, famous also abroad, are the only three that all of the experts agree upon.

After this triad of excellence, the opinions of the rest of Italy’s restaurants are discordant and very mixed. And this could just be a good example of critics doing their job well. Though there are some parameters that must be followed when expressing an opinion, in the end, each critic still has his own personal taste that will never quite be the same as any other’s.

But, when reviewing these guides, there is another fundamental element that cannot be ignored: it is most probable that the judgment made by some guides does not take into consideration only the quality of the food.
Though Italy has an ancient and distinguished culture and tradition of cooking, the number of its Michelin three-star restaurants never seems to increase (there are only five: Le Calandre in Rubano - Pd; Al Sorriso in Soriso - No; Dal Pescatore in Canneto sull’Oglio - Mn; Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence; La Pergola in the Hotel Hilton in Rome), while other countries like Germany, Japan, and Portugal have long surpassed Italy’s meagre number of three-star restaurants.
Among the various explanations for this is the fact that, at least for the French guide, there is also a lot of weight put on the ambience of a restaurant. So it may be that Italian restaurants might need to do a little remodelling if they want to catch up…