Dinner with a private chef

We often have clients who are looking for the complete Italian experience. They want to rest, but to eat good food. They want to be able to relax all day by the pool, put the children to bed and then sit down and eat a delicious dinner. Or if the children are older, they want to enjoy a family meal. But often, they don't want to cook this meal themselves - they are, after all, on holiday. At La Chiesa di Santo Stefano we have several options for dinner, from a good local cook to a high class chef.

But this week we tried out a young chef who has worked in restaurants in London as well as Italy, and we put him through his paces with a party of friends. And what an excellent job he did. We started with a carpaccio of swordfish, and roasted tomatoes. Then we went on to one of two pasta dishes. The first was an angel hair pasta with prawns and fresh truffles. The second was his own home made ravioli stuffed with fresh ricotta cheese, with baccalà (salt cod) petals and fresh tomatoes. Then on to the main course - delicious pieces of sea bass with potatoes roasted with rosemary. We finished the meal with a lovely millefoglie filled with peaches and chantilly cream, with a fresh peach sauce. It was a complete triumph, and this is certainly a chef we will use again.

A Wedding in Italy

A wedding in Italy is almost guaranteed to be a wonderfully romantic occasion. The Italians are full of romance, and their wedding celebrations are second to none.
At La Chiesa di Santo Stefano, we have already had our first wedding of the year, and it was a beautifully sunny day at the end of May. The bride looked gorgeous, and every detail went according to plan.
Of course, we spend a lot of time planning, liaising with caterers, florists, musicians, the local council to get the permissions and so on. Nothing can be left to chance.
But the highlight of the day is undoubtedly the food. Never are you likely to have seen so many courses and so many options at a wedding. The canape table is spread with about ten different sorts of "nibbles" - although they're quite substantial. Then everybody moves around to the pool terrace where a long table is heaving with antipasti - from stuffed zucchini flowers to scampi wrapped in pasta kataifi (very thin shreds of filo pastry - delicious). Tables for this part of the event are laid around the grounds, on the lawns, by the pool - so that the bride and groom can circulate.
Then, after an hour or two of eating - the serious business of dinner takes place under an open sided gazebo. Dinner probably consists of two first courses, possibly a pasta and a risotto, and then onto the main course, and finally the dessert buffet.
The whole dinner probably lasts around five hours - but is an absolute delight for everybody. And then, of course, there's time to dance the night away and work off some of that food.
To see images of the most recent wedding, click to see Real Italy wedding gallery
More information about weddings and parties can be found here.

News Blog!

Welcome to the new blog from Real Italy. This isn't intended to be a daily diary of our activities. Its purpose is to bring family, friends and guests up to date with news - not just about La Chiesa di Santo Stefano, the lovely Italian villa owned and managed by Real Italy - but also about events in the glorious Le Marche region of Italy.

This area is a wonderful, relatively undiscovered, part of Italy. It has many of the attributes of Tuscany - but without the crowds. If art and architecture are your reasons for going to Tuscany, then Le Marche is full of hidden treasures. Or if it's the glorious scenery of central Italy, you won't be disappointed. Le Marche has a beautiful Adriatic coastline, particularly around the Monte Conero area, and only forty minutes in the other direction is the Sibillini National Park - a superb mountain range full of wild flowers in the spring and summer, and skiing in the winter.

One of the things we like best about the area - particularly the part of the countryside where the villa is situated - is the lack of tourists. It is very unusual to see such a thing as a Tourist Menu outside a restaurant. Indeed, it's difficult to find anybody who speaks English. But they do love the tourists they get, and everybody from shopkeepers to people in the street will give you a smile, and try to help you - mainly by talking to you in very fast Italian. But their sign language is pretty impressive!

We're Twittering too - see the link on the side bar - so please follow us. If there are any major news items in the blog, we will make sure that a Twitter link is provided.