Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers

Contributors

By Rick Steves

By Fred Plotkin

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Feb 2, 2027
Page Count
472 pages
Publisher
Rick Steves
ISBN-13
9781641717625

Price

$35.00

Price

$46.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

Format:

Hardcover $35.00 $46.00 CAD

Whether you’re traveling to Italy or an armchair aficionado, Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers shows you how to experience the best of Italy through the timeless pleasures of its cuisine. From tantalizing antipasti and saucy pastas to luxurious gelato; from its coffee culture to its dolce vita wine scene, this book will show you how to appreciate good food the way Italians do.

Organized by each of the 20 regions in Italy, readers will find “must-try” lists for food lovers, dishes and wines that are famous in the region, and the top cities and towns to visit to sip, savor, and get the most out of every bite. Sample panzerotti in Puglia, tortelloni in Tuscany, and spaghetti alle vongole in Venice. Don’t skip the sorbetto or gelato for dessert (dolci). And when an Italian offers you a coffee (ti offro un caffè), it’s a gesture of graciousness and friendship. You get into a brief quarrel over who pays and then you politely lose and say grazie.

Filled with beautiful photographs, Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers also teaches readers food customs and cultures, including types of eateries you’ll find in Italy, the best places to do food shopping, and the multiple courses that makeup a complete Italian meal (and strategies for ordering). Within the book, you’ll find a list of 100 favorite restaurants, handpicked by co-authors Rick Steves and Fred Plotkin.

Rick Steves and co-author Fred Plotkin have devoted decades to traveling through Italy. In this book, they pass along those lessons to you. Appreciate good food the way Italians do with Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers.

Series:

  • "As a treasured accessory for novice travelers, it will be second only to a passport; more experienced hands will value the authors’ suggested restaurants, mostly insider tips that don’t make the usual lists."
    Florence Fabricant, The New York Times
  • “Part-travel guidebook, part-food encyclopedia... the book covers it all, like getting into the history of Italian wine, the intricacies of antipasti in Florence and the units of measurement you’ll need at a market.”
    The Washington Post
  • "The country's foremost expert in European travel for Americans."
    Forbes
  • "Steves is an absolute master at unlocking the hidden gems of the world's greatest cities, towns, and monuments."
    USA Today
  • “Every country-specific travel guidebook from the Rick Steves publishing empire can be counted upon for clear organization, specificity and timeliness."
    Society of American Travel Writers
  • "Pick the best accommodations and restaurants from Rick Steves…and a traveler searching for good values will seldom go wrong or be blindsided."
    NBC News
  • "…his books deserve to be in the pop-history canon. Steves possesses a surprisingly strong authorial voice, one that permeates through the expected contrivances of a typical guidebook."
    Slate
  • "His guidebooks are approachable, silly, and even subtly provocative in their insistence that Americans show respect for the people and places they are visiting and not the other way around."
    The New Yorker
  • "Travel, to Steves, is not some frivolous luxury—it is an engine for improving humankind, for connecting people and removing their prejudices, for knocking distant cultures together to make unlikely sparks of joy and insight. Given that millions of people have encountered the work of Steves over the last 40 years, on TV or online or in his guidebooks, and that they have carried those lessons to untold other millions of people, it is fair to say that his life’s work has had a real effect on the collective life of our planet."
    The New York Times Magazine
  • "[Rick Steves] laces his guides with short and vivid histories and a scholar's appreciation for Renaissance art yet knows the best place to start an early tapas crawl in Madrid if you have kids. His clear, hand-drawn maps are Pentagon-worthy; his hints about how to go directly to the best stuff at the Uffizi, avoid the crowds at Versailles and save money everywhere are guilt-free."
    TIME Magazine
  • "Steves is a walking, talking European encyclopedia who yearns to inspire Americans to venture 'beyond Orlando.'"
    Forbes
  • “…he’s become the unofficial guide for entire generations of North American travelers, beloved for his earnest attitude and dad jeans."
    Outside Magazine
  • "His books offer the equivalent of a bus tour without the bus, with boiled-down itineraries and step-by-step instructions on where to go and how to get there, but adding a dash of humor and an element of choice that his travelers find empowering."
    The New York Times
  • "His penchant for creating meaningful experiences for travelers to Europe is as passionate as his inclination for making ethical choices his guiding light."
    Forbes
  • "[Rick Steves'] neighborhood walks are always fun and informative. His museum guides, complete with commentary about historic sculpture and storied artworks are wonderful and add another dimension to sometimes stodgy, hard-to-comprehend museums."
    NBC News

Rick Steves

About the Author

Since 1973, Rick Steves has spent about 100 days a year exploring Europe. His mission: to empower Americans to have European trips that are fun, affordable, and culturally broadening.

New York Times-bestselling author, Rick produces a guidebook series, a public television series, and a public radio show, and he organizes small-group tours that take over 30,000 travelers to Europe annually. He does all of this with the help of more than 100 well-traveled staff members at Rick Steves’ Europe in Edmonds, WA (near Seattle).

When not on the road, Rick is active in his church and with advocacy groups focused on economic and social justice, drug policy reform, and ending hunger. What’s the ideal vacation for a professional traveler? For Rick, it’s to play his piano, relax at his family cabin in the Cascade Mountains, and spend time with family and friends at home in Edmonds.

Find out more about Rick at RickSteves.com and on Facebook.

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Fred Plotkin

About the Author

Fred Plotkin is the author of the bestselling and acclaimed Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera, which is the standard text in North American for discovering the glories of opera. He writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Opera News, Das Opernglas, and Gourmet. He lectures on music for leading institutions, including Columbia University, the Juilliard School, and the Smithsonian. Plotkin is a popular guest on the intermission features of the Chevron Texaco-Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, and many shows on National Public Radio. An expert on Italy, he has written five definitive books on Italian food and wine.

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