Osteria della Ciccia, the meat trip up the Arroscia valley

There are days, on a seaside holiday, when the craving for meat is the serious kind: the tagliata won't do, the idea won't do — you need the steak, the real one, with the bone and the crust. When it hits me like that, around here there's only one place that comes to mind, and it isn't by the sea: it's up the Arroscia valley, in Ortovero, and it's called Osteria della Ciccia. The name alone tells you no one's joking.

From Oneglia you get there by car, a good half hour climbing towards Albenga and then into the valley. It's a trip of pure greed out of town, one of those outings you make on purpose to eat: just as Alassio is the eastern day out, Ortovero sits there, in the middle of the hills, for when you crave dry land and the grill. You leave the sea behind, take a few bends through the olive groves, and pull up in front of a burgundy sign that says it all: "menu with meats selected from the old butcher's shop".

A Tuscan osteria, in Liguria

The surprise here is that you're in Liguria but at the table you find yourself in Tuscany.

The Osteria della Ciccia is a Tuscan-style meat osteria, and the showpiece is the one you'd imagine: the bistecca alla fiorentina on the grill, tall, seared outside and red within. But the beauty is where the meat comes from — Dario Cecchini's shop in Panzano in Chianti, the "butcher-poet" who in Tuscany is something of a legend. It's no detail off a leaflet: it's the reason the meat here is serious.

The kitchen is open to view, and it's half the fun: you sit down and you watch the grill, the cuts, the hands at work. No frills built for the photo, no museum-piece plating. You come for the meat, and the meat is the master of the house — alongside the bread, the vegetables and a glass of red, exactly as it's done in Chianti.

The dining room of Osteria della Ciccia: yellow walls, tables with red placemats and, at the back, the open kitchen with the grill.

The fixed menu (and the ritual of the long table)

The right way to live it is the fixed-price menu. It works like a parade: the cuts come, the meats, the side dishes, and you let yourself be carried along without having to choose a thing. The price already includes the wine, the water, the dessert and a small digestivo to finish — which means one thing, and we may as well say it straight away: here you drink.

And that's exactly right, because the Osteria della Ciccia is the place where you stuff yourself with meat and wine in good company, without watching the clock. It's an osteria for long tables, rowdy, made for sitting a good while, chatting and topping up the glass. It fills up at the weekend, so book — in a group it's practically compulsory.

The grilled bistecca alla fiorentina, carved next to the bone with rosemary: crust outside, pink within, and a glass of red alongside.

One honest (and friendly) tip

And here I come to the one serious piece of advice, the one that makes the difference between a wonderful evening and a wonderful evening and nothing more.

Put the pieces together: a fixed menu with the wine included, a long evening, and Ortovero up in the valley, far from the coast. It means you get there from home by car, and that between one course and the next the red flows merrily. So I'll tell you as a friend, just as I do for its city cousin of meat: elect your designated driver before you even open the menu, make them swear allegiance to water, and then everyone else can enjoy the fiorentina and the Chianti with a clear conscience.

Because that's exactly the difference with Porca Vacca. That one is the meat osteria on the port of Oneglia: there you walk home, you leave the car where it is and you drink without a second thought. Here you're up in the valley, and the way back is all downhill through the bends: it's one thing to do it as a satisfied passenger, quite another to do it as a driver who's had one too many. Choose well who drives, and the trip stays nothing but a fine memory.

How to get there

The Osteria della Ciccia is in Ortovero, at Via Roma 65, deep in the Arroscia valley — province of Savona, not Imperia: I say it because the valley is already another world compared to the Oneglia coast. From Stella sul Mare reckon on a good half hour by car, climbing towards Albenga and then into the valley. It's open in the evening, and on Tuesdays it's closed: note it down before you set off.

And if the craving for meat hits but you've no one to drive, the kingdom of meat is right on the port too, a few steps from home and all on foot. And if you want the full picture of where to head when you've had enough of fish, I've already lined up where to eat inland, from the city osteria all the way to the villages of the hinterland.

Places where you drive up on purpose for the meat, with the fiorentina coming from Chianti and the wine already on the menu — around here I know of one. It's up the Arroscia valley, and the only effort it asks of you is choosing who, on the way back, stays sober. The rest — the meat, the grill, the laughter — the osteria takes care of that.