Montanucci — The heart of Orvieto
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Generally, I think that staying away from guidebook recommendations is a good idea, especially in smaller towns and cities. Now and then though, somewhere manages to fight off the flood of tourists that comes with a Lonely Planet write up and maintain its character. Café Montanucci is just that. Café, bar, restaurant, bakery, pretty much everything, it is the heart of Orvietto and has been since it set up shop a century ago.
The blue façade of Montanucci greets you on the main road between Orvieto's world famous cathedral and the central square. If you make the journey from up from the main tourist car park via the mountain of escalators, you won’t be able to miss it. Once you step inside, ‘rabbit-warren’ is probably the best way to describe it. The main room when you enter is big enough with a huge bar stretching it’s full length. Here, you’ll find all manner of food, sweet and savoury, and of course countless regulars standing and chatting whilst they enjoy their espresso.
Beyond here, there’s a garden at the back and three or four more rooms around corners as well as one downstairs. Each and every one is tastefully decorated in a unique style with trademark wooden models of animals with one seemingly reserved for large tour groups (thank goodness). Another one downstairs is home to a TV for prized calcio evenings.
It’s very hard to explain Montanucci because it’s sort of everything so I’m going to go with ‘café/bar come bakery come restaurant’. It really strikes me that in England, and perhaps in any other country, this whole thing wouldn’t work. Goodness knows how many times I’ve complained about long menus and used stuck-up terms like ‘confused’ and ‘lacking focus’. Just occasionally though, it all comes together. Above all this is a community hub and by keeping locals and their business at the heart of everything it does, Montanucci has managed to get the best of both worlds: benefitting from the inevitable influx of cash from the tourists who pour through its doors and yet still being dominated by it’s regular clientele.
Every type of person under the sun descends on the café ranging from incredibly well dressed elderly Italian men to teenagers recovering from hangovers. The interactions between all of them is delightful to observe from afar: some might sit for hours and tuck into a long lunch whilst others dash in for a morning cornetto espresso combo. People watching is a minor passion of mine and if I lived in Orvieto, I can’t help but feel like I would set up shop here in the morning with my laptop and not move until lunch at the earliest.
I’ve talked a lot about the ‘vibe’ so far and what Montanucci means to Orvieto but I don’t want to give the impression that food and drinks come second. The focus on quality of product is the very thing that has kept the place so popular.
When I say that Montanucci does everything I’m really not exaggerating. I’m told by the smiling man behind the counter that there are 17 different types of cornettos (Italian croissants) alone. The way that his eyes lit up when I asked which was which was a pleasure to witness: “I love that question,” he said, and delighted in spending the next couple of minutes deciphering the filling of each and every one. I tried a couple of pastries and although I’m generally not a fan of Italian style pastry in croissants (there’s a whole article to come on this soon), one really stood out. Pictured below is a cornetto, generously pumped full of crema, but with the interior spread with Frutti di Bosco jam. This makes an untold difference to the sickliness of crema fillings that so often leaves you regretting choosing it - the combination works perfectly.
As well as those pastries, all baked on site, Montanucci is famous for its countless varieties of tarts; Chocolate, almond, cherry, and more. I only have so much capacity in my stomach so didn’t try any but they looked like perfection. The sheer number of people coming to collect whole ones for their weekend celebrations suggests that those looks aren’t deceiving.
Of course, there’s savoury as well; panninis, foccacias, seafood salads, rice salads, omelettes. And well, we’re in Italy, so there’s perfectly delicious and inventive homemade gelato too. The huge selection of salads, which you can order by weight, caught my eye the most. This is my favourite way to lunch and I love to do it at Branca in Oxford. It lets you try so many different things at the same time and completely cater your meal to your appetite.
Montanucci is a very hard place to sum-up and, without visiting countless times, I don’t think I could. Really, it’s an enigma. You can get everything from a cocktails to pastries, chocolate tarts, and seafood salads. Huge tour groups flood in through it’s doors and there’s even a shop. And yet, in spite of red flag after red flag, the community-centred heart of Montanucci persists. It’s dominated by local regulars and, as one waiter told me, “Orvieto runs here”. That’s all you need to know.
