Le Vecchie Mura

Le Vecchie Mura is, quite simply, the restaurant with the best sunset view in San Gimignano. The terrace is built directly onto the medieval city walls, looking out over the Val d'Elsa, the vineyards that produce the Vernaccia, and — on a clear evening — the distant silhouettes of Volterra and the Colline Metallifere. The sunset time-slot (8pm in summer) is a tightly booked affair, and the restaurant does not pretend otherwise.

The kitchen is unambitious and confident. Ribollita, pappa al pomodoro, a house Chianina tagliata, T-bone Fiorentina for two, slow-braised wild boar with polenta, and a panna cotta with fig that is better than it has any business being. The cooking is honest Tuscan home-style; the room does not compete with Cum Quibus or Linfa, and does not try to.

The wine list is a fair Tuscan run, deep in Vernaccia (producers from the adjacent hills are on the list almost exclusively) and with a serious Chianti Classico bench. Service is family-run, quick, and genuinely warm; the room fills in peaks with a mix of Italian regulars and international guests, and the waiters juggle both without fuss. The house Vin Santo pour at the end is generous.

The terrace holds around forty covers in two tiers, with the outer row getting the full panoramic view. An inside dining room takes another thirty when the weather turns. Value is strong: a proper three-course dinner with a half-carafe of Vernaccia comes in under sixty euros per person, and the view is not separately charged.

Le Vecchie Mura is a team-dinner and birthday-dinner room in the most visual possible register. The terrace seats twelve to sixteen in a single row, everyone gets the sunset, the menu works for a shared plate ordering, and the Fiorentina for two scales gracefully to a Fiorentina for four. For a group celebration in a medieval Tuscan hilltown, with a view that justifies the plane ticket, this is the clear answer.