Savigno is a center particularly devoted to traditional flavors, for years it has linked its fame to the “White truffle of the Bolognese Hills” and every second Sunday of the month, from May to September, it hosts the “Market of Good Things,” where all the typical and organic productions of the valley are present. In the town center, there is also a treasure trove of delicacies: La Dispensa di Amerigo, with the adjacent restaurant and some very original rooms to accommodate those who have ventured up here. Inside, almost everything has remained as it was in the 1930s, when grandfather Amerigo opened a grocery store, now run by his grandson, Alberto Bettini.
The atmosphere is pleasantly retro, the counter with the red marble top and the spacious shelves full of jars with preserved cherries and spirit-soaked fruits, jams, cherry compotes without added sugar, and a very pleasant Marasca liqueur are all beautiful, as well as, of course, honey, preserved chestnuts, sauces, pickles, tigelle, fresh pasta, cheeses, herb lard, and cured meats. All strictly produced in the valley. <>.
The abundance of water, brought not only by the Samoggia stream, which in dialect is familiarly called “la géra,” the gravel, but also by the Lavino, has favored the birth of many mills, and the last stop is precisely in one of these, a few kilometers above Savigno, in the Cà Bortolani area, where Fabio Rossi has restored the functioning of the 17th-century “Doctor’s Mill,” where he grinds cereals and chestnuts, obtaining flours with which his mother Marisa prepares very fragrant breads, cookies, mountain sweets, and fragrant cherry tarts.
