In years past, one of our favorite restaurants to visit was Trattoria Sciame. We stumbled upon it during our 2003 trip and returned a couple of times during our 2005 trip. Since then though, it has changed names, now going by L’Agnolo. There’s a salumeria just down the street from the restaurant with the same name. I’m not sure if they changed owners, or just passed it on to the next generation, because we saw the original owner (from 2003, 2005), in the salumeria and again, later in the evening at the restaurant. Anyway, we popped in here on the early side – about 7:40 for dinner. (Oh that reminds me, we asked Isabella what would be an appropriate time to have dinner out in Montalcino this time of year, and she said 8:00 – later in the summer).

We started with an order of aciughe con pesto (anchovies in a sauce of garlic, oil, and parsley) which were amazing – these also had some crushed red pepper for a little kick – real good.

Then, we each started with a primi followed by a secondi – for me, a vegetable and bean soup, for the other three – tagliattele with a truffle mushroom sauce that they all loved – the portions were huge – much bigger than we expected and filling. Yet, we all had secondi coming too. For Chris and I, wild boar stew with polenta (we could have shared a single order), for Katy, roast chicken and for Andrew, a fillet with a mushroom sauce – his steak was cooked perfectly but he wasn’t expecting the “gravy” and said because of that, he wouldn’t order it again. The rest of us were all satisfied. We also made the mistake of ordering some fries, which we had remembered as being fantastic in previous years, but were now just fries. Washed this down with some vino della casa (think we had enough brunello today), some aqua fizzante, and three limoncelos (Katy passed), and I believe the bill came to about 110euro. As always, good, basic food, in a simple restaurant, nothing fancy. I’d return, but I wouldn’t order as much.