A Walled City in Tuscany Clings to Its Ancient Menu
With its pink-hued medieval churches, tree-lined city walls and a famously excellent regional cuisine, Lucca seems the perfect Tuscan city. But that charm is precisely what has made it the latest battleground in a tug of war between the romantic Italy of the popular imagination and the more complex reality.
Lucca’s center-right city council recently stirred much contention, and accusations of racism, by prohibiting new ethnic food restaurants from opening within its gorgeous historical center.
This is, after all, a walled city. Many shops have been in the same families for generations. Some locals proudly trace their lineage, or imagined lineage, back to the Etruscans, who founded Lucca before the Romans took over about 180 B.C. With so much history, change comes hard.
Lucca is “very closed,” said Rogda Gok, a native of Turkey and the co-owner of Mesopotamia, a kebab restaurant, in the heart of the historical center. “In Istanbul there’s other food, like German and Italian, it’s no problem,” she added. “But here in Lucca, they only want Luccan food.”
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Lucca’s center-right city council recently stirred much contention, and accusations of racism, by prohibiting new ethnic food restaurants from opening within its gorgeous historical center.
This is, after all, a walled city. Many shops have been in the same families for generations. Some locals proudly trace their lineage, or imagined lineage, back to the Etruscans, who founded Lucca before the Romans took over about 180 B.C. With so much history, change comes hard.
Lucca is “very closed,” said Rogda Gok, a native of Turkey and the co-owner of Mesopotamia, a kebab restaurant, in the heart of the historical center. “In Istanbul there’s other food, like German and Italian, it’s no problem,” she added. “But here in Lucca, they only want Luccan food.”