BY VALENTINA PICCINI
A shady and fragrant garden of aromatic and ornamental herbs (as cultivated by Aboca Erbe), impeccable service, food so genuine that, in most cases, no seasoning is needed. This is the Osteria Il Giardino di Piero, the restaurant owned by Aboca Erbe that dominates the entrance to Via Aggiunti from the road that passes around the old walls of Sansepolcro.
For us who were kids in the 1980’s this has always been “the fish garden”, because the large round tanks with goldfish were one of our favorite attractions. And then there he is, the statue of Piero della Francesca, the painter that the people of Biturgia [an old name of Sansepolcro, tr.] learn to love from birth and there’s the adjacent rectory of the Church of San Francesco; Piero’s ‘garden’ is quite magical and unsurprisingly hosts the outdoor area of an equally magical restaurant. Led by Aboca Erbe, who wanted to debunk the cliché that “anything nice is bad for you” and that the “quality of a dish depends entirely on the skill of the chef” the Osteria Il Giardino di Piero is now a top local venue, where genuine food and hand-made pasta are joined to the elegant atmosphere of a historic building of the old town.
This restaurant, as is obvious if we think of the Aboca company, is marked by its sourcing of organically produced raw materials, whose original composition and taste have been conserved. All this to offer guests pleasant flavours not altered by chemicals or genetic modification. For example? The magnificent roast beef from native breeds, to which there is no need to add seasoning and alter the “taste of authenticity”.
In the dishes offered by the Osteria the taste is that of the substances that nature, in its perennial evolution, offers us: the philosophy of Aboca is in fact to respect the original taste of every food, without distorting it but using all its mastery in marrying it to the vari-ous ingredients with spices and the right herbs (which you can also admire being grown in Piero’s garden). Add to this the right cut, the right “fire” and you will get tasty and genu-ine dishes. And not only that; think of the digestive properties pro-oxidant or anti-oxidant of the same dish with raw materials obtained like this and appropriate cooking processes… Here what is nice is also good for you, nourishing and tasty.
The characteristics of the raw ingredients at the Giardino di Piero are amazing: fruit and vegetables come exclusively from certified organic cultivation (and I assure you, you really taste the difference!) but also for the rest of the ingredients local sourcing and top quality rule: the sheep, goat and cow’s milk cheeses come only from local shepherds who do not use GMO feed, while the Parmesan used is certified organic Reggiano only.
The beef is exclusively from the Chianina breed (certified organic) or organic Angus, the pork is exclusively from the Black Pig breed raised in the woods of Aboca (when they say low food miles they mean it!) and it’s certified organic. The prosciutto too is local from the Nebrodi Black Pig, the poultry comes exclusively from organic farms and the other meats and game come only from local farms without the use of GMO feed or from the woods owned by Aboca.
Great attention to authenticity even for salt and sweeteners: the salt used is only the one deposited from the seas some 250 million years ago at the foot of the Himalayas and can deliver the required sapidity with about half the sodium chloride, thanks to its content of other mineral salts valuable to health. Sugar and sweeteners come only from organic natu-ral products such as brown sugar, honey and stevia.
Info: Osteria Il Giardino Di Piero Via N. Aggiunti 98/B, 52037 Sansepolcro Ar / +39 0575 733119
Opening hours: Mon-Sun 12.30/14.00 – 19.30/22.00