Stories: Tuscany's Best Michelin-Starred Kitchens Where Pasta Still Matters

When most travelers think of Michelin stars, the image that comes to mind is haute cuisine: tiny portions, avant-garde plating, and tasting menus that read like poetry. Tuscany has that too. But as a region rooted in pasta culture — from pici and pappardelle to rich ragùs and freshly stuffed ravioli — some of its most celebrated kitchens still include pasta as an intentional, articulate expression of place and technique. Here are five Michelin-starred restaurants in Tuscany where pasta isn’t an afterthought but a genuine part of the chef’s voice and the dining experience.

1. Caino — Montemerano, Maremma (Two Michelin Stars)

In the small hilltop village of Montemerano in the Maremma, one of Tuscany’s oldest Michelin-starred kitchens has quietly become a reference point for how regional tradition and culinary refinement can coexist. Caino, awarded two stars, is led by Valeria Piccini, a chef who has spent decades interpreting Maremma’s landscape through refined technique and disciplined sourcing. MICHELIN Guide

What makes Caino relevant to this story isn’t just its Michelin status, but the presence of pasta in its repertoire — specifically dishes like lamb ravioli and pigeon preparations that signal a chef who cares about regional forms and their meaning on the contemporary table. Michelin Guide notes her “skillful seeker of superior materials” and how she reimagines them without masking their origin, highlighting local pastas and shapes alongside other refined preparations. MICHELIN Guide

In practice, this means you might find a freshly executed raviolo whose filling and sauce speak to Maremma ingredients — not to technique for technique’s sake, but to a recognition that pasta here is a language. The restaurant remains one of the rare two-starred kitchens in inland Tuscany where pasta — when served — is woven into the overall narrative of terroir and material respect.

Part of what makes Caino interesting from a pasta perspective is how the kitchen treats tradition as a starting point rather than a constraint. Ingredients that are local and seasonal influence when and how pastas appear on the menu, and even when they do not appear in every tasting, their logic — and their possible seasonal return — are part of the restaurant’s rhythm.

2. Silene — Seggiano, Monte Amiata (One Michelin Star)

Up on the slopes of Monte Amiata, a volcanic rise along Tuscany’s southern spine, sits Silene — a one-starred kitchen that approaches Tuscan ingredients through a lens of continuity with local foodways. The Michelin Guide describes the restaurant’s cooking as meticulous and rooted in local materials, with chef-patron Roberto Rossi drawing on both classic techniques and the bounty of his own garden. MICHELIN Guide

Silene’s relationship to pasta is perhaps more subtle than Caino’s, but no less significant: regional shapes and filled pastas, particularly in season, show a chef who understands the role of wheat, eggs, and handmade sheets in a broader Tuscan kitchen rhythm. TripAdvisor reviews and diner accounts mention handmade tortelli and other pasta forms as standout elements of the meal — not oddities, not afterthoughts, but fully integrated dishes that showcase precise technique and ingredient purity. Tripadvisor

A notable aspect of Silene’s approach is how pasta — when it does appear — reflects a gentle modernity. It is not retroactively “traditional” for the sake of tourism; instead, it is a clear choice by a chef who values subtlety of texture and fidelity to ingredient, whether in a tortello of local pigeon or a tagliolini accented with regional produce. Because the Michelin Guide highlights seasonality and the kitchen garden’s role, it’s reasonable to connect these pasta preparations to restaurant identity rather than incidental starch. MICHELIN Guide

3. Luca’s by Paulo Airaudo — Florence (One Michelin Star)

In Florence, the Michelin star scene leans toward contemporary and design-forward cuisine, but Luca’s by Paulo Airaudo is one of the notable exceptions where pasta continues to matter structurally on the menu. According to Michelin Guide listings (as of the latest 2026 edition), Luca’s earned a star for modern cuisine that nonetheless includes specific pasta dishes in its citations — examples such as tagliolini with goat butter and pigeon cappelletti — suggesting a kitchen that uses pasta as a thoughtful framework for ingredient interplay. Firenze Made in Tuscany

This kind of pasta — technically precise, conceptually considered, and regionally allusive — highlights how fine dining can still respect traditional forms while expanding their context. Airaudo’s cuisine is not pastiche; it isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about showing that fundamental Italian culinary forms like tagliolini and cappelletti can operate at the highest level of contemporary technique without losing their intrinsic logic.

For diners interested in how pasta can be articulated in a Michelin setting that still feels connected to the dish’s historical roots (even while it pushes them technically), Luca’s provides a compelling case. The restaurant’s location in Florence also situates it as a bridge between the capital’s cosmopolitan dining culture and the region’s deeper food traditions.

4. Il Falconiere — Cortona (One Michelin Star)

Part of the Relais & Châteaux Il Falconiere estate near Cortona, this one-starred restaurant has sustained recognition over many years and is often highlighted for the way it sources from its own farm and estate gardens. The Michelin Guide specifically mentions pici pasta as a featured element in dishes that showcase the estate’s produce and Tuscan flavour profile — a rare star attribution that directly connects pasta to place. MICHELIN Guide

The longevity of Il Falconiere’s Michelin rating — with the same star reported as maintained since at least the early 2000s — speaks to the kitchen’s consistency and clarity of identity: refined yet grounded in the agricultural landscape of the estate. Fresh pasta here isn’t a luxury garnish; it is part of the logic that links carefully produced ingredients to a high-end tasting experience.

Dishes featuring pici or other local shapes tend to emphasize texture and pairing with estate components, such as local olive oil, herbs, or complementary proteins. The result is not a reinterpretation of Tuscan pasta but a disciplined iteration of what made those shapes meaningful in the first place.

La Bottega del Buoncaffè (Florence) holds one Michelin star and represents one of the clearest examples in the city where pasta remains a meaningful part of a contemporary fine-dining menu.

The kitchen’s approach is seasonal and ingredient-driven, and handmade pasta appears regularly as a structured course rather than a decorative gesture. When pasta is served, it follows Italian logic: fresh dough, clear shapes, and sauces built around vegetables, meats, or seafood chosen according to availability. The emphasis is on balance and precision rather than reinterpretation.

What distinguishes La Bottega del Buoncaffè in the Florentine Michelin context is that pasta is not replaced by purely technical constructs. Instead, it coexists with modern technique as a legitimate form, demonstrating that fresh pasta can still function at a high level without being reduced to nostalgia or theatricality.

In a city where many starred kitchens lean toward international fine-dining language, La Bottega del Buoncaffè remains one of the few places where pasta retains its role as a composed dish with regional grounding and technical clarity.

Why This Matters

Too often, Michelin coverage of Italian regions leans toward the continental fine dining narrative — villas by the sea, tasting menus that resemble modernist experiments, or florid reinterpretations of classic forms. Tuscany, with its centuries-old pasta traditions, offers a useful counterpoint: regional shapes matter. When a two-starred kitchen references ravioli on its tasting menu, or when a one-star guide specifically notes pici cooked with local garlic, it signals pasta’s role as culinary architecture rather than decoration.

In Tuscany, pasta continues to matter because it expresses: