PESCINA - SEGGIANO - MONTE AMIATA - SINCE 1890
THE PESCINA PAT
Our history. Our dish. Since 1890.
THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING
The Window That Tells All
There is a window, at Locanda La Scottiglia, that tells it all.
It was 1971. The dining room was being renovated, the old plaster was being torn down, a larger opening was being opened up towards the valley to the west. And there, under decades of lime, a painted sign re-emerged: “Antica Locanda Da Momo”. The original name. The beginning of it all.
That window still looks out over the same landscape: the vineyards and olive groves of Seggiano and Montalcino, then the Val d'Orcia stretching towards the Maremma, and every evening, that sunset that we never tire of watching.
SINCE 1890
The wayfarers of Monte Amiata
The story begins in 1890, in Pescina, a small hamlet of Seggiano on Monte Amiata. It was here that the family opened the “Da Momo” inn to welcome travellers coming up from the Val d'Orcia to the extinct volcano.
Grandpa Delio used to say that when travellers arrived who wanted to sleep, the family would give them their room and make do elsewhere. Hospitality was not a service. It was a choice.
“Hospitality was not a service. It was a choice.”
OUR DISH
The dish of this precise place
There is a dish that does not belong to Tuscany in general, nor to the Maremma in a broad sense. It belongs to a specific place: Pescina.
Scottiglia di Pescina was born in the houses of the village, not in just one kitchen, but in all of them. It was the dish of Sunday, of the feast, of work. When the men left to cut the woods in Maremma, they would bring the leftover Scottiglia: it was good even the next day, it gave energy, it resisted the cold and fatigue.
THE RECIPE
From Aunt Palmira to Fabio
There is a dish that does not belong to Tuscany in general, nor to the Maremma in a broad sense. It belongs to a specific place: Pescina.
Scottiglia di Pescina was born in the houses of the village, not in just one kitchen, but in all of them. It was the dish of Sunday, of the feast, of work. When the men left to cut the woods in Maremma, they would bring the leftover Scottiglia: it was good even the next day, it gave energy, it resisted the cold and fatigue.
PAT Traditional Food Product
The Italian Ministry of Agriculture has included Scottiglia di Pescina in the list of Traditional Agri-food Products, the state's official recognition for those foods that have a history, a precise geographical identity and a recipe consolidated over time. We are not just a restaurant that serves it. We are its certified custodians.
THE KITCHEN
Adina, fifty years in the kitchen
Adina, Massimo and Fabio's grandmother, was in the kitchen for almost fifty years. She was a mother hen: generous, good, always at the cooker. Those who remember her, remember her with her hands in the pasta, the tortelli, above all. There was not a day when that kitchen was empty as long as she was there. She held the inn together as naturally as she held her family together.
THE HALL
Noemi, nothing escaped her
In the hall, for almost fifty years, was Noemi, Massimo's mother. Kind, caring, and with a rare gift: nothing escaped her. From breakfast to closing, from the hall to bookkeeping, Noemi did it all. Guests still remember her, because when you entered Locanda La Scottiglia, she was the first person to make you feel at home.
THE FAMILY
Iris and Aunt Vanna
Iris, Fabio's mother, a teacher by profession, never failed to put her hands in the dough at weekends and in the summer. It was she who passed on to Fabio the love for that kitchen, not as a trade, but as something he carried inside.
And then there is Aunt Vanna, Fabio and Massimo's aunt, but everyone's aunt. She too has always had another job, but she has never stopped helping Noemi in the hall. And she is still there today, next to Massimo and Fabio. In a family inn, there is always someone who does not appear on the sign but without whom nothing would be the same. Vanna is that person.
“The structure has never changed family. The kitchen has never changed its identity.”
FIFTH GENERATION
Massimo and Fabio
Today the inn is called Locanda La Scottiglia. Massimo and Fabio, cousins, fifth generation, run it as naturally as their grandparents welcomed travellers. Massimo in the dining room, like Noemi before him. Fabio in the kitchen, with Rajaa beside him, like Adina and Iris before them.
The land around us, the vineyards, the olive groves, the forest, the seasons, that sunset in the west, has never ceased to be our larder and our inspiration.
