Osteria di Passignano, Tuscany

Had the recent pleasure of going to Tuscany and visiting Osteria di Passignano, which was in the neighbouring town. I'm British, all my previous 1 and 2 star experience has been in Britain, this is pertinent later.

It's been almost a week and I'm not sure how I feel yet , so shall break it down, might help

Location, room.
It's in a town, funnily enough, called passignano. A collection of buildings around a monastery. Even on a cloudy day it's stunning. Inside, it's an old building and quite charming, with local towns emblems on the walls. As you can maybe see by the pics though, our corner table had different lighting than the others, and ultimately was just a bit dim. No big deal.

Staff.
Generally and genuinely lovely. A couple in particular were really personable.

Drinks.
It's in the middle of Chianti, it's hard to get bad wine. It's in the middle of Chianti… so I drove, there's no taxi service (from my tiny hill top town to this tiny hill top town anyway) so my wife had a tasting flight, whilst I had 2 small glasses throughout the meal. All of the wife's flight was delicious, especially and unsurprisingly a £160 a bottle tempranillo, it almost deserved to be a course on its own. That kind of was the vibe of the pairing, the wines were delicious, but didn't have that pop that I'm used too, didn't seem to work as the additional ingredient to the dish. I love when something comes alive on the plate because of the paired wine, and it just didn't happen. However, I'd happily drink all the wine again.

As a driver, I didn't really have an option beyond just drinking wine and water, I've never had an non alcoholic pairing before, I'm not sure I want one. Maybe the 'continental' thing is just to drink drive?

The food.
We had a few days in Florence, then tuscany, then Pisa. Had some excellent food throughout, a general theme was the best food was very simple, e.g. some pan roasted rabbit with olives in Pisa. Exceptional

Food here carried a similar theme, there's a big kitchen garden, the bottom dish of pic 4 was some salad from there. With a tomato jelly, fresh clean and delicious. The other two dishes here were a sesame whip, and a broccoli mouse in some bread, which weren't as strong.

Pic 6 was some breaded and fried aubergine puree, with an aubergine juice and parsley sauce, with some cooked and raw aubergine. This is where my Britishness started getting in the way, maybe I'm a bit too used to creamy buttery sauces, but aubergine juice and parsley tastes as you'd expect, not bad, just not delicious. The less was less, not more, for me here

Pic 7 was some crab and prawn ravioli and tartar. Clean, sweet and delicious. Possibly the strongest dish

Pic 8 was mushroom ravioli, with fried mushroom and mushroom puree. Somehow, didn't taste all that mushroomy, just kind of bitter.

Pic 9 was pigeon with balsamic and a date, onion and potato cake. Very dense and sweet, but also very one dimensional. I appreciate the Italian tradition is to have dishes separately, maybe pasta and a veg sauce, followed by some meat and cabbage. Rather than a big Sunday roast like the UK. But I really wanted some contrast here

Pic 10 and 12 was a huge tiramisu the wife had, best she's had, then the victorious photo after

Pic 11 was a chocolate desert I had, I'm not the biggest coffee fan. Was excellent.

I don't think there was anything wrong with the food, I just don't think it was to my taste.

Other customers.
I know a restaurant can't really control this, there were Italians in there, wasn't just tourists. But I've never seen so many people wearing jeans, but weird to me. There was a table of 12 or more Americans, I've never seen so much food and drink sent back to the kitchen, not in a complaint way, just didn't want it. So wasteful and, to me, disrespectful.

Anyway, that's that. Side note, if anyone is going to Florence you should go too osteria pratellino. I wish it were my neighborhood restaurant, a celebration of the simplicity of Italian food. Main course of skirt steak and chard, excellent. My starter was celery stuff with beef mince, breaded and fried, delicious. Definitely deserving of a note of mention if not a *