In a world in which everyday a new “fusion cuisine” place opens, lately I’ve been devoting myself to gathering a list of authentic places, the ones our grandparents hung out at and which never failed. I live between Italy and Spain and so I have an alert for you: if you decide to visit all my authentic places, make sure you haven’t your Google Maps set on “on foot”!
In the first place I’d like to share with you a recent discovery that an old (is that a coincidence?) friend made me find out: the place is called La Peseta and it’s in the old Valencian “Grau” fishermen quarter.
It’s an old bar with a charming Art Nouveau design in which you can taste many traditional seafood dishes and preserves, combinig them with a good Spanish wine or a “caña” (a 20 cl glass of draught beer). It is there since the 1910s, but, I assure you, this octopus was pretty fresh!
![IMG-20190421-WA0022[8197].jpeg](https://d34vm3j4h7f97z.cloudfront.net/original/4X/9/5/7/9573da66cc7c48276318a9ca18a0688a00c336a1.jpeg)
For the second spot I’d like to share with you we must make a big jump and move to Bologna, Italy, most exactly its city center; the place is called Trattoria Pizzeria Belle Arti and it’s a cozy trattoria (Italian restaurant serving homemade food) similar to a wine cellar.
Here you can have the time of your life thanks to a plate of Tortellini in brodo (a typical filled fresh pasta cooked in beef broth very common in Bologna) and then take a stroll down one of the world’s longest porticos, all situated in Bologna!
Oh, if you’re Italian like me, it will surely remind you of the day after Christmas lunch, in which your grandma prepared broth just to clean the stomach 
Now let’s take a flight back to Spain and don’t forget to bring with you a sun protection cream if you don’t want to end up with a sunstroke, because we’re heading to the Costa del Sol capital, that is to say Málaga. Málaga is my amazing community, the place where I chose to live almost 4 years ago and by far one of the best spots to live in Europe, thanks to its warm climate, its nice people and its rich cuisine.
This time I will not talk about a specific restaurant, but I’ll rather describe a custom of all “boquerones” (anchovy, that’s how the natives of Málaga are called), that is to say the sunday lunch by the sea in the Pedregalejo promenade: here you can find warm temperature and clear sky through all the year, so what’s better than sitting in front of the sea waiting for your espeto to be served (I swear it’s not a swear word, it’s just how grilled anchovies are prepared, that is to say on a wooden skewer)?
Or, if you prefer, you can join the paella team, just like my boyfriend and me in this pic.
Now that you are relaxed and have your stomach full, just go soak your feet in salt water (they say it’s a panacea for skin) and plan how to reach my last location, not a bad one I must say: follow me to Rome, most precisely the not especially central Casilina neighborhood, where you’ll find the Trattoria da Francesco; it’s been there since 1957 and it shows!
Litterally a blast from the past, in this place the owner will treat you like family and serve you the dish you chose from the everyday changing homemade menu only if it came out nice. My beef stew did come out nice.
I hope you enjoyed my crosscultural culinary trail in pursuit of authenticity; now pardon me, but I have to observe the Málaga sunday traditions …
All pictures are taken by me.
