Ristorante La Sosta Torano

Ristorante La Sosta Torano

We all read about and hope to find little restaurants tucked away in quiet Italian villages where you can eat traditional meals cooked by the nonna hidden away in the kitchen – sometimes they are nothing more than somewhere for the local residents to have a reasonable meal at a reasonable price. One such place is Ristorante La Sosta Torano in Torano Nuovo.

Ristorante La Sosta Torano is not aiming for any Michelin stars – all it does is feed the locals and any passing visitors and feed them well. When we arrived there was no sign of life except for a disembodied voice from the kitchen which sounded slightly panicked at our arrival. We were hurriedly assured that Francesco was on his way and could we please take a seat.

The antipasti menu offered bruschette al pomodoro at €2.50 and they were not bad considering the tomato season hadn’t really started yet – my fault for ordering something out of season. However, the olive all’ascolane were excellent and given that this is an Abruzzese speciality it would have been disappointing had they not been good. The olives were enormous and the meat stuffing was very tasty.

The pasta is all freshly made and, boy, it shows! The tagliatelle agli sfricoli demonstrated just what you could do when you add pancetta or guanciale, good olive oil, and lots of pepper to homemade pasta.

The menu is pretty extensive and reasonably priced but unfortunately because of time constraints we couldn’t try their range of roasted meats – it did look very good though. You can choose from lamb, pork, veal, goat, and beef with all the attendant contorni. The wine selection is adequate.

The dolci choice includes a typical Abruzzese dessert known as Pizza Dogge which consists of Pan di Spagna, a lemon-flavoured creme patisserie, a chocolate-flavoured creme patisserie and a good dollop of rum in there. Sounds good!

Sadly, it was too early in the year for the tables to be out on the terrace but we suspect that it would make for a very pleasant dining experience. If you’re around Torano Nuovo and perhaps been tasting the wines at either Cantine Guido Strappelli or De Angelis Corvi, it would be a shame for you not to add this restaurant to your itinerary.