The best Italian restaurant app just got better. Osterie d’Italia 2024, the latest app version of Slow Food Editore’s killer guide to Italy’s most authentic restaurants, now serves up its piping-hot recommendations in English for the first time.
Plus, a much-improved search functionality makes it easier than ever to find a great place to eat in Italy. And a new feature lets you store your notes and photos about particular restaurants in the cloud so you can access them in subsequent versions of the annually updated app.
This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.
Osterie d’Italia app helps you discover Italy’s best restaurants
Italian publishing house Slow Food Editore’s annual Osterie d’Italia books — now in the 34th edition — showcase restaurants that produce “good, clean and fair” food. When traveling throughout Italy, the guide’s recommendations prove invaluable for anyone interested in an honest meal prepared by kitchens that care.
Some of the most memorable meals I’ve eaten in the country — and there have been many — were served in places I discovered through Slow Food Editore’s thoughtful guides.
However, previous versions of the Osterie d’Italia app (which is much more handy than carting around the heavy paperback version of the guide) only came in Italian. And it didn’t offer a translation feature. That made hacking through the priceless recommendations a bit of a challenge for someone like me who loves Italian restaurants but hasn’t yet mastered the language. However, the 2024 edition of Osterie d’Italia, released earlier this week, is available in English as well as Italian.
The Slow Food movement places special value on traditional dishes, some in danger of fading away in the fast food era. The Slow Food Editore’s authoritative guide reliably highlights purveyors of high-quality food with deep roots in Italy’s hyper-regional cuisine.
As such, the Osterie d’Italia app takes pains to point out menu items that flow from the country’s rich and diverse culinary history. That means you might find places that serve hard-to-find dishes that have fallen out of favor with modern diners (including more offal than you might like, although you don’t have to order the finanziera if you’re squeamish about eating rooster wattles and calf’s brains).
Rest assured, you won’t suffer the dreaded Italian tourist trap restaurant if you stick to the recommendations in Osterie d’Italia.
The ultimate Italian restaurant finder app
Each listing includes a brief rundown of the restaurant’s history and philosophy. Then a section reels off the highlights of the menu, course by course. A final brief summary lists not-to-be-missed dishes.
Helpful icons in the app (just like in the digital and hard-copy versions of the Osterie d’Italia guidebooks) designate restaurants with excellent cheeses, baked goods, wine lists, etc. The most highly recommended venues earn the coveted red snail icon (le Chiocciole).
The final section of each listing gives you all the details you need. You’ll find addresses (which helpfully open in Apple Maps), phone numbers, hours, websites, number of seats, average meal prices, and dates the restaurant typically closes for holidays. The detailed listings even indicate if establishments are pet-friendly, serve homegrown vegetables or have parking nearby.
If you care about food, and you’re planning a trip to Italy, the Osterie d’Italia app is a must-have guide to finding the country’s most outstanding restaurants. At $6.99, it’s more expensive than using restaurant recommendation apps like TripAdvisor, but that’s money well-spent if you want to make every meal count during your trip.
Price: $6.99
Download from: App Store
For more Awesome Apps, see our weekly roundup.
