Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian

Everyone in San Pancrazio knows “il Francese”, Yves Ollivier, born in the countryside of Western France in Poitou-Charentes. Yves is a dynamo who irradiates energy: he doesn’t sit still for a moment and you get caught up in his enthusiasm.

We are in the “Officina di San Pancrazio”, once an automobile repair shop, and now a brasserie with a shiny new rotisserie, ready to delight the table. The food is wonderful: antipasti and roast meats.

The rotisserie reintroduces a great local tradition with meat cooked slowly as it rotates on the grill. Yves arrived in Tuscany in 1986: “Over the years I did a bit of everything”, he tells us, “I ran a farm stay, I made theatre sets, i was a cook (I had a restaurant in France), I cooked at people’s homes, I dealt with alternative medicine”.

He is a man of the world but is very much tied to our countryside. “Living in the area, I often frequented San Pancrazio. I was always curious about the ex body shop on the via Certaldese, out of use for at least 10 years”. “Just think”, he told his friends, “what a nice restaurant this could become…”. From this thought, the idea came to life in the last few months.

“I made the decision in April of 2015. I am going to open a brasserie. We worked like crazy and opened in August”. Yves explains a “brasserie”: “Everything that can be made on the grill, cooked by our grand Marcelloa grand master. Here we have antipasti on the grill besides on our latest acquisition, the super rotisserie. We cook chicken, ribs, sausage, baby Sardinian pig,lamb, pork, steak…”.

He is happy to tell us that he has “only 2 suppliers: Morandi Carni of Tavarnelle, the La Costa farm for vegetables, the organic farm Casanova di Trapanotto and Sons for cheese. The wine is also from the zone. This morning, for example, in two hours I went shopping, visiting all the suppliers”.

Here heart and passion go hand and hand. The inside decoration is warm and welcoming, cured in every detail by Yves. He unites his passion for food with his passion for art, in a unique and unmistakable mix.