Trattoria Cibocchi - TODI

We went for a pizza with a large group of 12 people. We had a great fun evening. The pizzas were very good, as was the other food. The place is entertainingly chaotic, so do not plan on a quick meal. Given the number of us, the pizzas arrived one or two at a time, so there must have been at least 20 mins between the first and last person being served. However, food was good.

Such a lovely, kind family. And I don’t know how a simple plate of pasta at a roadside trattoria can be so good, but it was the best of my 6 weeks in Italy. I was traveling solo; it was Mother’s Day and I wasn’t clear on my communication with them over the phone the day before, but I stopped by anyway. I needed to eat outside and they weren’t set up for outside this day; everyone was eating inside. When I arrived and explained I needed to be outside for Covid reasons, they immediately set up a table for me under the spring blooming trees, looking out over the beautiful Umbrian green countryside. My lovely waitress (believe she is the daughter of the owners) had to scramble back and forth to serve the one table outside. It was my own private Mother’s Day lunch, first time alone in 31 years. And as I said the plate of pasta (pasta chianina) was the best of my trip. I’ll be back some day! Hopefully next year!

The location is great, the menu (written on an iPad! is extended, but the food is less refined as one would expect in such an authentic place. Our lambmeat was cut in large fat chunks and the boar meat was too salt. The patron’s temper was quite grumpy. There were only a few guests taking pranzo, making the whole atmosphere not optimal considering the nice place (with clean toilets too .

We were happy to visit this restaurant as I had read glowing reports about it by Elizabeth Minchilli and as it is just down the road from our accommodation, I had images of us popping down every few evenings for a delicious traditional meal. How wrong I was! First impressions poor. We arrived at 7.30 to an empty restaurant with the lights turned off and just greeted by stares. We went into the bar and eventually the owner came in a little surprised but took us into the restaurant turning on the lights and the large TV which was an annoying presence throughout our meal. Food was boring, mediocre and dripping in oil. I do not believe our pasta was made in house as we had read in reviews and the truffle sauce was weak in flavour and did not appear homemade. Did I mention everything was dripping in oil?!? The only saving grace was my pork chop which was nice but my husband's wild boar sauce was awful. Full of oil, strange sauce. He left three quarters of it. It was also pricey for the quality. Very disappointed. We so wanted it to be good but unfortunately, that was not the case.

Ristorante strepitoso, ricco di semplice genuinità: quando vado a Todi è la mia prima scelta!