Restaurant in San Vincenzo
"Il Sale"

At the beginning of January 2020, as soon as the last customers from the New Year's celebrations left, we had to figure out how to reopen the "Il Sale" restaurant by April. Our main concern was finding chefs who shared the ethics we had embraced for over twenty years: local production, tradition, and quality, and most importantly, using our own resources, such as a one-hectare vegetable garden and an impressive farmyard. The garden hosts typical Tuscan botanical and animal species, and research is ongoing in collaboration with the University of Pisa to preserve local species.

Since 2006, it has not been possible to fully integrate the diversity of seasonal flows and irregular quantities into the kitchen: values from another time, undoubtedly challenging in today’s world of standardization and simplification. What we were missing was passion and a bit of reason.

By chance, we got in touch with a colleague from Castiglioncello: they told us about a Japanese chef who had worked with them for many years and had developed a passion for Tuscan cuisine. Currently based in Milan, Shimpei and his partner Sayuri were looking for a place connected to the sea and nature.

We met them, they came to discover Poggio ai Santi, and were fascinated by the potential of our projects. We were also impressed by their cordiality and meticulous interest in products and their processing. Shimpei and Sayuri are now in charge of the kitchen: they know how to listen, learn, understand, and share. Both have a strong mastery of their profession and a keen sense of the flavors and textures of the dishes they prepare. Their dishes (Sayuri is a wonderful pastry chef) reveal the intense flavors of our organic vegetables and meats, to which they add herbs from our fields. A discovery: the tradition of our Tuscan dishes with a hint of Japanese aroma. With Shimpei and Sayuri, we will also add some Japanese dishes to our menu during the week for our local customers, but also for our guests who did not expect anything other than to add a touch of exoticism to the quality and intensity of Maremma's flavors.

....to be rather than to seem: the emotion of enjoying simple and true flavors, those that generous nature offers us, always different for each day of the year.

....to know in order to choose: live experiences are essential to learn to recognize our daily gestures, like choosing a tomato, rediscovering the true taste of wheat in a slice of bread, perceiving the aroma of an egg laid according to its natural rhythm, "biting into" the authentic texture of meat from an animal that had the fortune to move as nature intended.

....to research in order to build: a productive and commercial model that considers social sustainability and respect for the land that hosts it.

....to replicate in order not to forget: i the knowledge of cooking doesn't have real texts to ensure its transmission over time.

The field and vegetable garden cuisine comes from an ancestral culture, almost always passed down orally by women, where everything was important and nothing was wasted.

With us, Doretta, the matriarch of our family, is the keeper of this knowledge, along with the indispensable help of an enthusiastic and professional staff eager to learn this new-old cuisine.

This is how we try to safeguard this invaluable heritage.

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The names of the dishes on our menu have been carefully chosen to give us the flexibility to use the ingredients that Nature offers us; our staff will be happy to update you each time on the daily variations.
Thank you for choosing to cultivate these good habits with us, and for helping us make the world a little more beautiful.
We are at your complete disposal to answer all of your questions.

There’s pasta, and then there’s pasta
All the dry pasta we use is organic and made only from certified Tuscan wheat by the artisanal pasta maker Palandri of Pistoia. The gluten-free pasta comes from Pastificio Morelli in San Romano (PI).
Our homemade pasta is prepared in our kitchen using only locally grown, stone-milled grains from the 'Il Felciaione' farm in Campiglia Marittima, along with eggs from our own hens."

The importance of raw materials
We have been growing vegetables on our certified organic farm for 18 years.
Our gardeners put all their passion into providing us with good, clean, and fair products.
The same goes for the eggs and poultry that we raise ourselves, with full respect for animal welfare and for a healthy, high-quality product.
The other meats are certified Tuscan throughout their entire supply chain. Alessandro Ciacci, our butcher, selects for us the traditional cuts typical of our heritage, with special attention to the aging process and without neglecting a key aspect: animal welfare.
The milk, mozzarella, ricotta, pecorino, and all the cheeses used in our kitchen are produced in local agricultural and artisanal facilities. We are fortunate to live in a region where many flocks of sheep still graze on the aromatic pastures of our Mediterranean hills, and where buffalo are still raised in the Maremma plains, recalling the ancient swamps that once existed there.

The right fish
Perhaps not everyone knows that fishing is part of the agricultural sector; in fact, it is referred to as aquaculture. We are fortunate to be a farm located near the sea, and both by personal choice and agritourism regulations, you will find only local fish on your plates.
Our cuisine favors the use of less conventional fish with more intense flavors, the ones that characterize the typical dishes of our region.
We purchase most of our fish from a small local fishermen's cooperative. We process mussels from the Gulf of Piombino, which are more flavorful because they don’t have to travel across Italy before reaching our plates, and all the bluefish comes from suppliers in San Vincenzo who certify its origin.

( ZONA FAO 37.1)