Where to eat in San Gimignano?
If you like gelato, check out the excellent gelateria in Piazza Della Cisterna (it’ll be on your right after you pass the main cathedral in town. It’s in the piazza with the well in the middle of it). Their orange cream, pistachio & white chocolate flavors are the best. 2 restaurants inside San G walls that I would highly recommend:
1. La Bettola del Grillo 2, Via Quercecchio, 33, San Gimignano, phone: +39 0577 907081. A cute place. They have very good Italian cold cuts (salame, prosciutto, etc.) & pizzas. Some of us (yes, you know who you are!) couldn’t get enough of their prosciutto. Their pizzas are brick-oven-baked thin crust, slightly burn, crunchy and perfect. I liked the one with mushrooms, peas and anchovies the most.
2. Le Vecchie Mura, Via Piandornella, 15 53037 San Gimignano, phone: +39 0577 940270 http://www.vecchiemura.it/ is a MUST visit. It’s a beautiful restaurant with outdoor seating area that offers amazing panoramic views. I suggest get a table outside on the terrace if you can, and you’ll get this view:
Their Insalata Caprese (Mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil - all fresh), eaten with balsamic & extra virgin olive oil was EXCELLENT! The local grown tomatoes were sweet. The buffalo mozzarella cheese was freshly made, soft and just melt in your mouth. The balsamic wasn’t sour like in the States at all, it was sweet and tangy. We normally don’t like eating raw tomatoes, and Thuan doesn’t even like cheese. But their Caprese salad converted us both! We also loved their Ravioli al tartufo (Raviolis with a truffle sauce), Agnello al forno (Baked lamb), Ossibuchi in umido (Braised marrowbone steak prepared in fresh cut tomatoes), Gnocchi tartufo e formaggio (Gnocchis - potato pasta- with a truffle and cheese sauce), tiramisu and panna cotta. The tiramisu was just a blob on the plate, but it was fantastic. Not too sweet, just right. The panna cotta with chocolate sauce was amazing. We had 5 different bottles of wine here, and all of them were very good. All less than 9 euros each! The same caliber of wines in such a fancy restaurant would easily cost more than $80/bottle in D.C. Thanks to our friends for taking us to this wonderful place, and for making sure we tried the Caprese Salad.
** Back home, I found a small gourmet market that sells 12-yr-old balsamic, a bit expensive, but worth it. Still looking for comparable fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese 
Updates: We found pretty good buffalo mozzarella cheese imported from Italy. Of course they are not freshly made like what we had, but it’ll have to do. I gave up on finding fresh tomatoes that are as sweet. Something has to do with the soil in the Mediterranean. Our recreated Caprese salad at home is a 7, compared to a 10 in San Gimignano.
2/3/12 - Found Roma tomatoes! Let me know if you’re in DC Metro area and would like to re-create this dish.
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