In ‘Shhh, don’t tell anyone’ you can discover the places that our guests and friends at The Wine Conversation like to keep quiet about (in case they’re booked up), the off-the-beaten- track restaurants well-known to wine insiders.

The unusual place where Tuscany’s top producers eat

The hot new place to eat in Tuscany is not a Michelin-starred restaurant; no, it is at a butcher’s counter in the village of Castellina in Chianti.

Giovanni Mazzei of Ipsus took me there for lunch, and the owner did indeed pull out a table and plonk it in front of the counter which was full or deeply coloured Florentine steaks and beautifully butchered slabs of meat. Watch the locals come in and shop and shmooze while you eat from what they have prepared that day. For me, Tuscan sausages with harvest grapes, rich, delicious and packed with Tuscan herbs, tongue so fine and silky that you wonder why it isn’t on the menu more often. Delicious vegetables too, all home-cooked, and a choice of local wines. There are only a few tables, so get there early. macelleriastiaccini@gmail.com