Rimini

Strip away the neon beach clubs Rimini is famous for and you find Fellini's home town, a place with serious old bones and a genuine fishing culture underneath the parasols. The eating splits in two: the rough-and-ready piadina kiosks and beach-shack fritto misto on one side, and on the other a quietly ambitious table that has learned to plate the Adriatic with restraint. Trattoria da Lucio is the local touchstone for raw and barely-cooked seafood — scampi, mazzancolle, whatever is sweetest that day — served with the confidence of a kitchen that buys from the boats. Inland the cooking turns to piadina, cappelletti in brodo and Sangiovese, the Romagna heart that the summer crowds never quite see.