The Bon Vivant Blog

A very well-known purveyor of gelato in Bologna which has won awards . It is a different kind of gelato from what we had a Perche No – much richer-tasting with a fuller mouth feel. In fact, as they are scooping it out from the containers, the gelato just looks thick and hangs off the [...]

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In contrast to Sorbetteria Castiglione, this is just an ice cream window with two servers flanked with a row of ice cream mixers/makers. It would be easy to walk past this place if it weren’t for the line of customers. The fact that there is a line-up even at 11pm tells you that this is [...]

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Listed in the Michelin Guide for Italy as a ‘Bib Gourmand’ restaurant, this place has made me re-think the trust I put in the ‘Bib Gourmand’ ranking. Dinner was €42 – which wasn’t bad for Venice, being a reasonably expensive tourist town. But the food? I think the word ‘Meh’ best describes my reaction to [...]

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Recommended by a friend who had been to Cernobbio before, we made a reservation about a month before coming to Cernobbio. The lady at the local tourist office told us it would be a short walk up from our hotel, but after walking up the mountain 20 minutes from our hotel, and realizing it would [...]

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Now this is one restaurant that deserves a Bib Gourmand certification – delicious dinner for two including wine (yes, in Venice) for €27? The owners should be called magicians, not restaurateurs. Let me back up. Last night we walked by a huge mob of people outside of this restaurant – we wrote down the name [...]

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Usually when you’re traveling in European countries, “Mexican” restaurants aren’t real Mexican food, but rather are Tex-Mex; so when we were in the beautiful lakeside town of Como, who would have thought that we’d find a “Mexican” restaurant that served some of the best pizza in town? This place was in the Lonely Planet, so [...]

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While staying at the very nice Hotel Palazzo Ravizza, we decided that just a quick, light dinner nearby was what we were in the mood for. A few doors down from the hotel is this cute local restaurant, and it didn’t disappoint. It had the familiar ‘Le Guide Routard’ stickers on the window – usually [...]

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