I had been concerned, when agreeing to vacation in Italy in August, that we'd encounter nothing but summer closures wherever we went. My general take on August is that it is the month Europeans use to cleverly evade neighboring cultures, by abandoning their native capital and visiting the capitals of other nations, whose native populations have simultaneously decamped, like a large-scale apartment swap. Paris shuts resolutely in August; by and large the only things left open during this time are mercenary tourist traps.
It didn't bode well that the acclaimed restaurant linked with the hotel / residence where we stayed, Da Felicin, was closed during our stay. Upon arrival we had a slightly grim noncommunicative interaction with the older fellow at the desk at Da Felicin, brightened only at the end by the unrequested receipt of several of his endorsements of good restaurants open in Monforte in August. In the end we wound up visiting all his recommendations that week, less because so much was closed than because Monforte is a very small town.
The first place, Osteria La Salita, was all of twenty paces from our doorstep, and it was in any final reckoning probably the best. The cuisine was fresh, and the wine, like almost everywhere we went, was magnificent and cheap - but it was the buoyant, over-the-top hospitality that pretty much gilded the entire meal. It was evidently infectious: towards the end of our meal, an adjacent table of visiting Ligurians spontaneously presented us with a fresh black truffle, and then another, when they saw how delighted we were with the first one.
