food and drink
one island, thousand flovors, endless emotions

Food & Drink on Giglio

one island, thousand flovors, endless emotions:

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Wonderful food and wine completes the extraordinary offer of this small island.

The island cuisine is based on simple dishes and Tuscan culinary specialties enriched with local ingredients. You will find many restaurants on the island that offer excellent cuisine based on fish and land and “homemade” desserts. From the sea, a variety of fresh fish and shellfish cooked on the grill, in the oven or in soup and served with excellent local white wines.

However, it should be remembered that the typical dishes of Giglio draw more from the gardens than from the ports. Agriculture has been the cornerstone of the Giglio economy for centuries, since ancient times the people of Giglio have created terraces to be able to cultivate even the slopes of the steepest hills. They built kilometers of dry stone walls and terraces in which to grow mainly olive trees, vines and vegetables. Some define agriculture or viticulture as “heroic” to emphasize the intensity and difficulty of their work, which is truly extreme.

The rebirth of viticulture in the 90s finally brought to light wines of excellent quality, almost all with the historic Ansonca grape.

All the restaurants and pizzerias on Giglio Island

In the restaurants of the Giglio Island you can taste the excellence of the Tuscan gastronomic tradition together with typical land and sea dishes of the island in a truly unique atmosphere: in Giglio Porto you can breathe a marine air with the restaurants that overlook directly on the water, in Giglio Castello instead you can enjoy the atmosphere of a medieval village and in Giglio Campese you can eat almost everywhere on the beach….

Wines & Viticulture

Local Giglio and Maremma Wines
The Wines of Giglio and the Tuscan Maremma

Ansonaco is the name of the wine produced on the island of Giglio, a highly sought-after wine, a typical excellence of the place. It is made up of 90% Ansonica grapes grown since ancient times in small vineyards overlooking the sea.
While the production at Giglio was once very abundant and there was a thriving export…

Local Products

Artisan honey, oil, wild and aromatic plants, wild herbs, discover the products of Giglio ...

Panficato

The best known product of the Giglio Island is a typical and traditional dessert, the Panficato. It is a sweet loaf, quite soft and with a characteristic brown color based on figs and walnuts, honey, wine and dried grapes. It is a winter dessert but you will find it all year round at the island’s pastry shops  and it goes very well with the typical local wine, Ansonaco…

Gigliese recipes

Typical dishes of the Gigliese cuisine, a short collection of simple recipes from our territory...
Sorgente Acqua Selvaggia a Giglio Castello

Water Spring Acqua Selvaggia

The tab water on Isola del Giglio is supplied by desalination plants (and no longer by tankers) so, although it is drinkable (when filtered), you usually buy bottled drinking water.

A good alternative is the fountain of the Isola del Giglio (Sorgente Acqua Selvaggia) which is located in Giglio Castello (before arriving at the central square on the right where there is an indication for the parking and where the old wash houses are located).

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Fresh Fish

Don’t be surprised if you don’t find a fish shop on the island of Giglio. Until a few years ago, the only large fishing boat in Giglio sold the catch of the day from a Ape vehicle in Giglio Porto. Today about 5 fishermen with smaller boats sell their catch mainly to restaurants.

The fish truck that runs from June for the whole summer every day at Giglio takes the place: you will find it from 9-11 in Giglio Porto and from 11-13 approximately in Giglio Castello – only on Wednesday instead of stopping in Giglio Porto it goes earlier in Giglio Campese. During the rest of the year they come twice a week, Tuesday and Friday, always with stops first at the port and then at Castello.

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