My wife will be doing a land tour with Tauck in June. Most of the lunches and dinners are taken care of through Tauck, but we do have some lunches/dinners where we are on our own. My one fear is that the meals we have in the restaurants Tauck has picked are going to be dumbed down for tourists, and my wife and I are fairly adventurous eaters and want to eat what the locals eat, not the tourists. I already have a reservation for L'Acciuga (a one-star Michelin) for dinner in Perugia. I'm looking for recommendations for lunch in Arezzo, Dinner in Gubbio, and lunch in Spoleto. I realize this may be a long shot and may just go with what Michelin says for places to eat, but if anyone has a place they liked, please share.

Ahhh, love that area. My wife and I met while studying abroad in Castiglion Fiorentino and then got married and moved to Perugia for a year to teach English.

Anyway, a lot of good food in that area.

If you have a car and it is a nice day, Antica Pieve in between Arezzo and Castiglion Fiorentino is great. Super friendly staff and authentic Tuscan fare, no tourists.

In Arezzo, I recommend Teorema del Gusto. Really great Pici and tagliere.

As a side note, Castiglion Fiorentino is a wonderful little town with a fantastic (new-ish) Etruscan museum at the top of the hill. Unfortunately A&M's satellite campus there has closed but what a great time had by many Ags.

Edit to add:

Gelateria Veneta in Perugia has some great gelato. The banana-chocolate combo was my go-to. Real banana, not the fake yellow stuff.

We've had great meals in Gubbio and Spoleto as well but that was 20+ years ago and we had some Italians driving us around and I don't remember the names of the places we ate at.

When did it close… and why?
I spent a semester there & it changed my life!!

Well, you may have heard that Paolo passed away a few years back and while the rest of the great staff tried to keep things going, a number of things were working against them. The building itself was/is in need of some significant repairs and that seemed to be the final straw. As of last summer, the city had taken over Santa Chiara and was handling renovations after which would be using it as a primary school, I believe.

From what I've been able to see online, if you stand in the middle of a town, have someone blindfold you and then you walk in any direction, you'll find a good place to eat.