Best Restaurants in Montepulciano: Where to Eat and Choose

What Montepulciano cooking tastes like

The local table is a celebration of the countryside rather than the sea: hand-rolled pici, beans and ribollita (a thick bread and vegetable soup), grilled meat including fiorentina di Chianina, and autumn plates of pappardelle with boar or hare sauce. Pici reach their most local form with aglione, a garlic-heavy sauce from the Val di Chiana, and the same pici turn up with white duck ragù and shavings of pecorino in the centre. For the full story of Pici: What They Are and Where to Eat Them in Montepulciano, our companion guide follows the pasta across the town.

Two ingredients run through much of the local cooking: pecorino, the sheep's cheese, grated over pasta and folded into fillings, and the truffles and mushrooms gathered in the woods around the town. Truffles and mushrooms are the strength of the central osterias, so a plate of ravioli stuffed with potato, porcini and black truffle is as regional as anything on the list. Pecorino is matured nearby as well as here, and our guide to Pecorino di Pienza explains the ageing and the shops. Finish with cantucci, the almond biscuits, dipped in Vin Santo, the sweet amber wine that closes a Tuscan meal.

Nobile di Montepulciano, the town's red, is the natural glass alongside all of this, and a single glass with a plate of pici or grilled beef is the sensible way to drink it at lunch. A bottle shared across a table of four is the other route if you are staying the night.

Trattoria di Cagnano: a family trattoria outside the walls

Trattoria di Cagnano sits on Via dell'Opio Nel Corso, just beyond the town walls, and is run as a family place with a short, plain repertoire rather than a long menu of choices. That makes it the pick for a relaxed lunch on the way into or out of the centre, when you want a proper plate of pasta and a table you can settle into without dressing up.

Order the pici all'aglione first, since this is where the garlic sauce is at its most typical, and follow it with cinghiale al Vino Nobile, boar braised in the town's own red. Panzanella, the bread and tomato salad, is the third plate to know here: it is the light option on a hot day when a braise feels like too much.

Because it is outside the walls, it works best as the first or last meal of a day in Montepulciano rather than a dash between sights.

Osteria del Conte: a central osteria for truffles and mushrooms

Osteria del Conte, on Via di S. Donato, sits among the elegant palazzi of the old town and cooks with what the surrounding countryside gives it, notably truffles and mushrooms from the woods. It is the most convenient of these tables if your day is built around the centre, with the walk back to the car or the bus short enough that nobody has to drive a country road afterwards. If you are weighing this against another old-town base, the best restaurants in Alghero show the same centro storico logic at work.

The two dishes to fix on are pici with white duck ragù and shavings of pecorino, and ravioli mugellani, stuffed with potato, porcini and black truffle. The first shows how the local pasta handles a richer sauce, the second is the mushroom and truffle cooking the town is known for in a single plate.

This is a good choice for a dinner after a day on your feet, when you want the town around you rather than a drive afterwards.

Ristorante La Grotta: a table opposite San Biagio

Ristorante La Grotta stands on Via di S. Biagio, directly in front of the Tempio di San Biagio, the Renaissance church just below the town. That position makes it the answer to eating with a view: the church and the countryside below fill the view, and you are out of the crush of the main street without being far from it.

The kitchen works with seasonal produce from the surrounding land, and two plates show the style clearly: bottoni, round stuffed pasta, filled with cinta senese pork and served with cavolo nero and sweet-and-sour pumpkin, and pappardelle with ossobuco ragù, an acidic butter and saffron from the Pieve. Order one each between two people and you taste both sides of the menu.

It is the table to book for a slower dinner with a view, and it pairs naturally with the walk down to San Biagio and back up into the centre afterwards.

L'Altro Cantuccio: Mattia Putzulu's modern Tuscan kitchen

L'Altro Cantuccio occupies historic rooms on Via di Gracciano nel Corso in the heart of Montepulciano, with tall windows looking out at the hills around the town. Chef Mattia Putzulu cooks Tuscan tradition in a modern key, keeping the local flavours but reshaping the plates, and the restaurant offers both an à la carte menu and a tasting menu, so you can choose between a few dishes and a full run through the kitchen's ideas.

It is the modern option in this list, and the one to choose when you want a designed meal with a tasting format rather than a plate of pasta and a glass of red. The restaurant asks you to book, takes American Express, Mastercard and Visa, has vegetarian dishes, and closes on Thursday, which is the day to plan around if this is your main dinner.

There is outdoor seating as well, which makes it a reasonable choice on a mild evening when you would rather sit out than in.

Podere della Bruciata: an agriturismo at Poggiano

Podere della Bruciata, on Via del Termine in the hamlet of Poggiano, is an agriturismo that combines a restaurant with the estate around it, so the meal and the countryside come as one. It is the pick when you want to eat away from the streets, with green space outside the door and a slower pace to the afternoon.

The dish to order is the mixed Tuscan roast, a spread of grilled and roasted meats that suits a table of two or more far better than a solo diner. Go for a long lunch here rather than a quick stop, since the point is the setting as much as the food.

Because it sits outside the centre, treat it as the meal that anchors a day in the countryside around Montepulciano.

La Vineria di Montepulciano: a focaccia and aperitivo stop

La Vineria di Montepulciano on Via di Gracciano nel Corso is not a full restaurant but a wine shop and eating stop, with aperitivi, focaccia and a short list of plates served in a room that mixes modern fittings with the warmth of a traditional osteria. Use it for the gap between afternoon and dinner, or for a light lunch when a three-course meal would flatten the rest of the day.

It also does takeaway and delivery, which makes it useful on an arrival evening when you would rather eat where you are staying than go back out. Do not book it expecting a sit-down dinner of courses: the focaccia and the plates are the point, and the wine is there to go with them.

For the wider picture of how the town drinks before dinner, and where a good aperitivo sits in the day, see this guide to aperitivo in Montepulciano.

How to choose between the centre, the walls and the countryside

If your day is built around the old town, stay central: Osteria del Conte on Via di S. Donato and L'Altro Cantuccio on Via di Gracciano nel Corso put you a short walk from wherever you are. If you have a car and want space around the table, Podere della Bruciata at Poggiano and Trattoria di Cagnano just outside the walls give you the countryside.

La Grotta is its own category, since the position opposite San Biagio is the reason to choose it over a central table. For the dishes the town turns on, the guide to pici, Tuscany's hand-rolled pasta, and where to eat it in Montepulciano is the natural companion.

Booking, the Thursday closure and planning the week

L'Altro Cantuccio asks for a booking and closes on Thursday, so if it is your main dinner, put it on any other night and reserve ahead rather than turning up. Its à la carte and tasting menus mean you can decide on the night how long you want to sit, which helps if the weather has pushed your walking later than planned.

Plan by shape of day rather than by clock: a long lunch at Podere della Bruciata or La Grotta, a central dinner at Osteria del Conte, a light focaccia stop at La Vineria. That way one meal does not crowd out the next.

What to order with a glass of Nobile di Montepulciano

Nobile di Montepulciano is the town's red, and it handles the local cooking well: boar braised in the same wine at Trattoria di Cagnano, grilled Chianina beef, and the ossobuco ragù at La Grotta. Keep to a glass at lunch and a shared bottle at dinner, and the wine stays a support to the food rather than the reason for the meal.

Finish with cantucci and Vin Santo at any of these tables, and if you want to take the cooking home, cooking classes in Montepulciano cover the same ground of pici and crostini toscani, the little toasted breads with toppings.

Which table suits a long lunch, and which a dinner

Long lunches belong to Podere della Bruciata, where the mixed roast rewards a slow afternoon, and to La Grotta, where the view of San Biagio gives you something to look at between courses. La Vineria di Montepulciano covers the opposite need: a focaccia and a glass when you want to keep moving.

Dinners are best split between the centre and the modern end of the list: Osteria del Conte for the truffle and mushroom cooking in the old town, L'Altro Cantuccio for the tasting menu and the room with its windows onto the hills. Trattoria di Cagnano fits either, depending on whether you eat before walking in or after walking out.

Which Montepulciano table should you book first?

Book L'Altro Cantuccio first if you want one designed dinner, avoiding Thursday, and take Osteria del Conte for the central evening that needs no planning. Put Trattoria di Cagnano or Podere della Bruciata on the day you want the countryside, and keep La Grotta for the meal where the view of San Biagio is half the reason you chose it.

Whatever you pick, order the pici once, the cinghiale once and a plate built on pecorino or truffle once, and the cooking of Montepulciano will have shown you its whole range in three sittings.