This is quite simply an exceptional establishment. Not only because it offers all the services of a restaurant, a bar, an ice-cream parlor and a wine bar but also because it's located in a splendid old eighteenth century building which was once an olive mill. Nowadays one can sit down for lunch and supper in the evocative cellar or else in the spring and summer months enjoy a meal in the large garden.

The owner and manager, Claudio Cavaliere, has come up with something just a little bit special here - to begin with, a range of traditional Tuscan dishes with, on Thursday and Fridays, a menu extended by various cod specialities.

The ice-cream is excellent and there's a whole range of different teas to choose from. But one of the real novelties of the "Cassia Vetus Osteria" is its selection of some of the world's finest coffees such as the Puerto Rican, Juaco Selecto the Jamaican Blue Mountain and among many others, the Hawaiian Kona Kay.

For Italians who love their coffee this is a rare and much appreciated service.

Besides cuisine the Mediterranean ice cream...