The restaurant in Fiumicello, directed by the spouses Santina and Giuseppe Perini, aged 77 and 84, together with their daughter Lorena and her daughters Gloria and Giada, is known throughout Romagna and also in Tuscany. For the ‘golden wedding’, the owners invite everyone to the party scheduled for today at 5pm “to celebrate our 50 years of activity together with an aperitif and the cutting of the cake”. Remembers grandmother Santina, the family’s azdòra: “It seems like yesterday that 11 April 1974, when I signed the purchase and sale contract for Fiumicello, which was then registered on 7 May”.
Adds her husband Giuseppe Perini, guide and ‘master ruler’ of the vast tourist, agricultural and forestry heritage of the upper Rabbi, with Fiumicello at its center and the Poggioli farm in Castel dell’Alpe: “We bought the restaurant with trout farming from a company managed by Don Giuseppe Biondi, then the local parish priest, when my parents Dina and Checco were still in the family. Now Santina and I have passed the baton to her daughter Lorena, helped by her daughters Gloria and Giada back then it consisted of a small bar and a dining room three meters by three, where maybe 5-10 people could be served”. In 1974 the Perini family carried out the first renovation, in 2000 the expansion took place to reach 120 seats in the dining rooms and 25 beds in the holiday apartments. Lorena Perini (her brother Lucio is in charge of the farm and the wood, while her sister Luana works as a lawyer in Forlì) says: “Among the restaurant’s specialties we offer typically Tuscan-Romagna cuisine, with homemade and pulled pasta. to the rolling pin by my mother and helpers, and grilled meat from the family farm of Poggioli in Castel dell’Alpe, which raises over 200 heads of cattle, even grazing in good weather, and has always been the chef of grilled meat my daddy”. Among the first courses, the menu indicates cappelletti, tortelli, tagliatelle and ravioli, while among the second course specialties donkey meat (steak, stew and ragù) stands out. Being inside the national park, very popular hiking and biking trails start from Fiumicello, as well as the classic and well-known one that leads to the nearby Mulino Mengozzi, a centuries-old water structure that is still functioning.
Quinto Cappelli
