Customer Reviews

Sandra Gustafson's Great Eats Italy

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're getting ready to take an Italian vacation, be sure to pick up this book before going. In touristy cities like Venice, Florence, and Rome it is easy to be overwhelmed by the restaraunts, many of which cater to the tourists with uninspired, low-quality dishes. Great Eats will help you avoid the tourist traps and eat at restaraunts that serve great food and reasonable prices, after all, if Italy's known for anything, it's the food. Miss the good authentic food and you've missed a lot. Besides, at ten bucks, it'll pay itself off versus going on your own by showing you where the values are. I wouldn't go to these cities without this book, it worked out GREAT for us.

I bought this book just for the Rome section and ripped it out to bring along. Most of the restaurants that we visited from here were just OK, not great. It still felt pretty hit or miss. Your best bet - skip books, get off the tourist track, find places that are busy with Italians eating in them and make your reservations for the next night. When we did that we were satisfied with every place we ate at.

We just got back from a week in Italy (Rome, Florence and Siena) and Gustafson's book helped immensely for both Rome and Florence. It is organized well and has good tips for what to eat where, so that when you are looking for a decent bite near a particular site, you can find one quickly. The book is broken down by cities, and then by locations within each city. For each of the locations, there is a wide variety of choices ("cheap eats", mid-range, expensive, and the best gelato and desserts) within that particular area. She also has other suggestions on food related products. The maps were good, but an additional map (often provided by the hotel) is helpful, as her maps are not very detailed. They are sufficient, though, for purposes of the book. Most importantly, we didn't have a bad meal at any of her recommendations.

Great book, and better than most guidebooks. However, I think Ms. Gustafson tends to heap overrated praise, perhaps in an effort to support small, local restaurants. Most of her recommendations are good, and some maybe even great. However, the book is more reliable than most guidebooks, and fun to read as well.

This is a great book to have. With the number of restaurants in the major tourist centers of Italy, many serving very mediocre food, it is nice to have a way to find some good places.

I have the 3rd edition of this book (published in 1999) which I just used during a trip to Rome. Even though that book is old, I found the recommended restaurants to still be excellent. I am sure that the current 4th edition is even better.

A key feature of the book was the maps showing the locations of the recommended restaurants. This made finding nearby restaurants very easy. The other book I used on my trip was "Gambero Rosso Rome." That book had no maps, so was very hard to use.

We used the 3rd edition of this guide for a trip in 2001 to Florence, Venice & Rome.
The only bad meals we eat were when we didn't use the guide.
Al Fagianetto was near our hotel in Rome and we ended up eating lunch or dinner there nearly every day.
Many restaurants were out of the usual tourist areas but well worth the effort to find good food at reasonable prices.
We will surely use Gustafson's other guides in the future.

Someone gave this to us for our honeymoon, and I was so pleased to find another copy to give to a friend for hers. After a few amazing recommendations in a row, we started using the guide for every single lunch and dinner, from the simplest pizza to the most luscious seafood recommendations, and it was spot on, every time. The best recommendation we followed was to go to Burano simply to eat at Il Gato Negro - unforgettable.

this book definitely made a difference in choosing restaurants in Italy, I read it before my trip, found the ones I wanted to try and I got rewarded with authentic jewish roman cuisine, one of the best pizzas ever, excellent bread,great pastas, granitas and gelatos. we went to restaurants that sometimes only the locals know, they are the best.Before traveling, research the place you are visiting, it makes for a more rewarding experience.

This is a great resource. We recently spent a week in Rome renting an apartment near Piazza Navona. We loved staying in an apartment versus a hotel, but were concerned about being "on our own" when it came to food without the assistance of hotel staff. We used this book to identify restaurants nearby and found the author's recommendations to be right on target every time.

I travel to eat and, with this guide in hand, I ate memorably in a different restaurant or trattoria every night for three weeks in Venice and Rome. The author's listings are, for the most part, unique to this book and evaluate an establishment's menu, service, ambience and location. (All locations are easy to find.) Her reviews are well written and reliable: she has eaten repeatedly at every restaurant that she lists.

This book allows those with discerning palettes to dine well in the company of in-the-know natives. If you want Italy's best cuisine, then get the Michelin guide. If you're on a tighter budget, you cannot do better with any other restaurant guide. (Friends who live in Rome were so impressed by the author's reviews of the restaurants already known to them that they were eager to try several others from the previous edition of this book. I gave them my copy.)