estimating restaurant costs in Rome & Tuscany

Elaine - hi!
One thing I have learned both from this travel site and also from personal experience is that when it comes to budgeting food costs, much much much depends on you. Some people budget over 50 euro per day for food, but I'm on a budget and for my longer stays, that wasn't going to happen, and I refuse to not travel because someone said I have to budget 50 euro per day for food. So I discovered that personally I can easily get away with 15-20 and not feel a bit hungry or restricted. Much depends on your tastes: do you have to have meat at every meal? Do you have to have wine at every meal? Are you willing to travel outside the tourist trap and find a restaurant that serves better quality at half the price? Do you have to sit down for every meal or are you willing to grab something at a counter and eat in a park or piazza? We are going for an extended stay and our local friends told us that their food cost is only 50 EURO per week (WEEK!) but that is based on buying fresh food at markets and cooking meals at home, and not really ever eating out. Which raises another question: are you staying in a hotel or will you have an apartment with kitchen? If you can provide some more details, you will get some more specific suggestions to use as a guideline, but still when all is said and done, you are the best judge of how much you will spend.

Hello Medford, give my regards to Tufts.... What sort of places do you like to eat in, what sort of food, do you like cafeterias, working class dives, fast food, michelin stars? Otherwise your question's a bit vague...

Fair point, Nigel. I'd say we're likely to want to sit down at a trattoria for lunches and a nice mid-range place for dinners. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Monique. Your comments are quite valid. I think what I'm after is some experiences translating guide books' $, $$, $$$, $$$$ etc. Information about relative costs is helpful. Information about what I can expect to pay when I see $$ and $$$ is better. Frankly, I don't see a lot of $$$$ in our future.

Ah, good question about translating $$$ etc. Which guidebook are you using. Fodors, Frommers, Time-Out, RS all use different scales, and the value to each $ varies from location to location, at least in RS. Can you tell us which book(s) you are looking in, please?

Fodor's Italy 2011

Fodor's Italy 2011

Fodor's Italy 2011

In regard to Siena: I was there for 3 nights in April. We had wonderful pizza/calzones starting at 6.50E for lunch. We ate a mid-priced places at night for around 20 E each.

Hi Elaine, for me budgeting for food also means budgeting for wine ;) In October we found that a 1/2 Liter of the house red ran about 7euros and they bring you snacks - chips, olives, nuts, bread sticks. Add to that a 7-12 euro antipasto platter... we could hang out for hours! My favorite find was at the grocery store... kids-juice-box-sized (a quart?) boxes of wine for about 1.50 euro! Taken to the steps of Santa Maria Novella in the evening - awsome! I was sad that we discovered the "juice boxes" late in our trip. Cin Cin!
-Libby

Elaine:
In a 24 day trip last October we averaged 76 euros per day for 2 people. (That included travel days to and from Italy.) About half of our breakfasts were in B&Bs, the rest were coffee and pastry in a bar or yogurt and fruit in our apartment. Lunches tended toward pizza, picnic, or sandwiches, 7 to 45 euros (with the latter being a splurge), dinner ranged from 35 euros to 95 euros, also on a splurge night (we splurged twice). Wine was always included with dinner. This budge also included bottled water (refilled at nasone) and plenty of caffe. We ate at many Rick Steves' recommended restaurants. Always a good choice. In Siena, though, we loved Trattoria La Tellina. Little English spoken, Italian menu, 42 euros total, perfetto! If you go to Montalcino, consider a splurge at Taverna Grappolo Blu. I budgeted 85 euros per day, just to be sure we didn't need to worry about every meal choice or caffe. Cooking was not on the agenda!