Skip to content

Top Navigation

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Trip Inspiration
  • Travel Guides
  • World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises
  • Travel Tips
  • News
  • Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Explore

    Explore

    • World's Best

      The greatest islands, cities, hotels, cruise lines, airports, and more — as voted by you. Read More Next
    • The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2021

      Whether you're traveling solo or planning a family vacation, here are the 50 best places to visit in 2021. Read More Next
    • Let's Go Together Podcast

      Start listening to T+L's brand new podcast, Let's Go Together! Hosted by Kellee Edwards. Read More Next
  • Trip Inspiration

    Trip Inspiration

    • Trip Ideas
    • Weekend Getaways
    • Spring Travel
    • Summer Travel
    • Fall Travel
    • Winter Travel
    • Solo Travel
    • Romantic Getaways
    • Luxury Travel
    • Beach Vacations
    • Adventure Travel
    • Road Trips
    • Family Travel
    • National Parks
    • Holiday Travel
    • Travel Photography
    • Photo of the Day
    • Culture and Design
    • Travel Deals
    • Attractions
    • Amusement Parks
    • Festivals and Events
    • Bus and Trains
    • Flight Deals
    • Budget Travel
    • Hotels and Resorts
    • Disney Vacations
    • Airlines and Airports
    • Ground Transportation
    • BookTandL.com
  • Travel Guides
  • World's Best

    World's Best

    • Top Hotels
    • Top Cities
    • Top Islands
    • Domestic Airlines
    • International Airlines
    • Tours
    • Safaris
    • All World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises

    Cruises

    • Find A Cruise
    • Caribbean Cruises
    • River Cruises
    • European Cruises
    • All-Inclusive Cruises
    • Family Cruises
    • Alaskan Cruises
    • Disney Cruises
    • See All Cruise Vacations
  • Travel Tips

    Travel Tips

    • Travel Trends
    • Packing Tips
    • Points + Miles
    • Budgeting + Currency
    • Customs + Immigration
    • Responsible Travel
    • Travel Etiquette
    • Travel Warnings
    • Weather
    • Mobile Apps
    • See All Travel Tips
  • News

    News

    • Wellness
    • Celebrity Travel
    • Animals
    • Jobs
    • Offbeat
    • See All News
  • Food + Drink

    Food + Drink

    • Restaurants
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails + Spirits
    • Bars + Clubs
    • Celebrity Chefs
    • Cooking + Entertaining
    • Food Fairs + Festivals
    • World's Best Restaurants
    • See All Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories

    Travel Accessories

    • Travel Bags
    • Shoes
    • Travel Tech
    • Shopping
    • Style
    • Gift Guides
    • See All Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home
  2. Food and Drink
  3. Restaurants
  4. Europe's Top Family-Run Restaurants

Europe's Top Family-Run Restaurants

By Anya von Bremzen
July 31, 2009
Skip gallery slides
Save Pin
Credit: Courtesy of The Foxhunter
Running a restaurant is truly a labor of love, so it only makes sense that some of Europe’s purest and most soulful dishes come from a family hearth. Fortunately, of course, kin cooking is a way of life across the Continent, from Wales to Istanbul.

And the flavor combinations that these clans concoct is causing a culinary commotion. The mother-daughter team at Oeteria di San Cesario outside Rome, for example, has drawn the praise of Rome’s food critics. And the husband-and-wife duo at Le Baratin in Paris’s 20th Arrondissement turns out globally inspired dishes every night, paired with wines from one of the city’s greenest cellars.

We’ve rounded up six of the most authentic family-run spots, but no matter where your travels take you, be sure to search out your own piece of household-restaurant heaven.
Start Slideshow

1 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Osteria di San Cesario San Cesareo, Italy

Credit: Oliviero Olivieri

Frustrated with their city’s banal offerings, Rome’s food critics often head out of town. Their grail?This cult osteria, some 20 miles south of the city, presided over by the larger-than-life Anna Dente. Descended from many generations of butchers, Dente is the reigning queen of quinto quarto (offal, in the local vernacular), turning tripe in salsa verde into a refined treat and performing delicious miracles with sweetbreads and spleen. Still, the reason to come here is the pasta made by her 88-year-old mamma, Maria. When sauced with classic carbonara and amatriciana (both bolstered by dusky house-cured guanciale) the fettuccine and gnocchi restore your faith in la vera cucina romana. Over ciambelle al vino (doughnut-shaped pastries), listen to the ebullient Dente spin tall tales about her adventures in Hollywood. Dinner for two $105.

1 of 6

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Nikolaihof Wachau, Austria

Credit: Justin Ritchie | Charlotte, NC

At Austria’s most historic estate, in the idyllic Wachau Valley (just over an hour from Vienna), the Saahs family pioneered biodynamic viticulture back in the 70’s. These days, while Nikolaus Jr. and Sr. attend to wine matters (restoring a 300-year-old grape press, for instance), family matriarch Christine Saahs channels her obsession with organic local ingredients into an extravagant buffet of rustic Austrian specialties. The winery’s tavern, decorated with antlers, sets the über-gemütlich scene for Frau Saahs’s free-range goose terrine with green walnuts; plump wild-nettle dumplings; and toothsome salads of biodynamic lentils or corn. To drink?Splurge on a bottle of Nikolaihof’s limited-edition Vinothek Riesling or Grüner Veltliner—complex aromatic beauties aged in giant wood casks for more than a decade but bottled only recently. Bring home: the matriarch’s lyrical elderflower syrup and apricot jam. Dinner for two $80.

2 of 6

3 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Restaurante Túbal Tafalla, Navarra, Spain

Credit: Lisa Linder

Atxen Jiménez, the gorgeous sixtysomething grande dame of Spanish gastronomy, is the magnetic star of this busy, clean-lined dining room on the main square of Tafalla, a town in Navarra, in northern Spain. Though she still runs the place like a tight ship, Jiménez has largely surrendered the kitchen to her gifted son Nicolás—a former student of the legendary Basque chef Juan Mari Arzak. Nicolás upholds Navarra’s reputation as Spain’s Eden for vegetables while adding discreet modern flair to the region’s famous asparagus, cardoons, and scarlet piquillo peppers. Assembled into a colorful bouquet scented with olive oil, garlic, and Ibérico ham, his menestra de verduras is the best thing to happen to fava beans and artichokes. Not that you’d want to miss the delicate stew of silken pochas (white beans), fresh off the vine. Lunch for two $128.

3 of 6

Advertisement

4 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Le Baratin Paris

Credit: Meg Zimbeck

Local chefs, grape geeks, and artists congregate late at night around the wooden counter of this snug bar à vin in the hilly, out-of-the-way 20th Arrondissement. A dedicated champion of natural wines, owner Philippe Pinoteau has amassed one of the city’s greenest cellars, offering a chalkboard menu of about 20 cuvées naturelles by the glass. In the kitchen, his glamorous Argentinean wife, Raquel Carena, takes slow-cooked bistro standards on a bit of a global adventure: lamb shank has a hint of Indian spices; juicy monkfish swims in a galangal-perfumed broth. Pinoteau (a lovable despot) will be sure to growl if you make a “wrong” wine pairing, so just ask him to make a recommendation. Dinner for two $65.

4 of 6

5 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Bogaziçi Borsa Istanbul

Credit: Hg2

Istanbul’s premier restaurant dynasty, the Ozkanca clan—father Rasim, daughter Bahar, and son Umut—owns some of the most accomplished spots in the city. Their flagship, however, is this elegant Harbiye District dining room with white-napped tables and contemporary Turkish art on the walls. Catering to local families and patrician businessmen, the Ozkancas take an anthropological approach to Turkish cuisine, researching recipes and ingredients in villages all over the country. A perfect meal here kicks off with plump red cabbage dolmas from the Black Sea region and progresses to keskek, a soothing wheat-berry “risotto.” Kunefe, a crisp sweet of shredded kadayif pastry and tangy cheese cooked over charcoal, tops our dessert list. Dinner for two $75.

5 of 6

6 of 6

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

The Foxhunter Nantyderry, Wales

Credit: Courtesy of The Foxhunter

After working in some of London’s best kitchens, Welsh-born celebrity chef Matt Tebbutt returned home a few years ago. He and his wife, Lisa, took over an old stationmaster’s house in the adorable southern Wales village of Nantyderry, on the edge of Brecon Beacons National Park. Here, in a cozy-chic gastropub setting—flagstone floors; wood-burning stoves; leather sofas—carefully sourced local ingredients turn up in delicious, unfussy dishes such as wild-garlic soup with poached egg or John Dory with hop shoots and pickled tomatoes. Curious about local bounty?Tebbutt will happily arrange a foraging expedition for sorrel or elderberries, then create a menu based on your trophies. There are a couple of cottages for staying overnight, too. Dinner for two $115 (book ahead for foraging weekends).

6 of 6

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Anya von Bremzen

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Trending Videos
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 6 Osteria di San Cesario San Cesareo, Italy
2 of 6 Nikolaihof Wachau, Austria
3 of 6 Restaurante Túbal Tafalla, Navarra, Spain
4 of 6 Le Baratin Paris
5 of 6 Bogaziçi Borsa Istanbul
6 of 6 The Foxhunter Nantyderry, Wales

Share options

Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message
Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
  • Sitemap
  • Travel Guide Sitemap

Connect

Follow Us
Subscribe to Our Newsletters
Other Travel + Leisure Sites
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • Parents this link opens in a new tab
  • People this link opens in a new tab
  • People en Español this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
Travel + Leisure is part of the Travel + Leisure Group. Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. Travel + Leisure is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation Travel + Leisure Group All Rights Reserved, registered in the United States and other countries. Travel + Leisure may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.travelandleisure.com

View image

Europe's Top Family-Run Restaurants
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.