Dei Cantoni

Where the Malatesta Left Off

Longiano sits on a ridge in the Forlì-Cesena province, the kind of town that takes a deliberate detour to find. The medieval castello that once housed the Malatesta dynasty, one of the most powerful signorie in 14th and 15th-century Romagna, still anchors the hamlet's skyline, and Via Santa Maria, the street where Dei Cantoni operates, runs through the older fabric of the settlement. Arriving here, the context is already doing half the work: stone, history, and the quietness of a hilltop inland from the Adriatic coast.

That physical setting matters to understanding what Dei Cantoni is and what it is not. This is not a coastal fish restaurant servicing the summer trade between Rimini and Cesenatico, nor a destination tasting-menu address pitched against the starred rooms of northern Italy. It is a regional trattoria operating at a disciplined level inside a tradition that Romagna has sustained for generations: sfogline rolling pasta by hand, larders stocked from the surrounding countryside, and a dining room that reads as local before it reads as tourist.

Romagna on the Plate

The cuisine of Romagna occupies a distinct lane within the broader category of Emilia-Romagna cooking. While the Emilian side of the region built its identity on Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, and the richly sauced tagliatelle of Bologna, Romagna developed its own grammar: piadina flatbread, strozzapreti, passatelli in brodo, and a more direct relationship with the Apennine hills and the Adriatic coast just beyond them. Dei Cantoni operates squarely within that Romagnolo tradition.

Chef Michael Franco's kitchen draws on local ingredients while allowing space for dishes that step outside regional orthodoxy. The pairing of imaginative preparations with more classical recipes, pasta with carbonara and amatriciana sauces appear alongside regionally grounded dishes, reflects a working restaurant's practical range rather than any identity confusion. What anchors both registers is that all fresh pasta is made in-house, which in Romagna is less a marketing point than a baseline expectation that still separates serious kitchens from casual ones.

Within the broader Italian dining spectrum, the price point places Dei Cantoni at the accessible end. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, which the restaurant holds for 2025, is awarded specifically to addresses that deliver good cooking at moderate prices. The Bib Gourmand bracket is its own competitive set, where value-to-quality ratio carries as much weight as ambition.

A Kitchen Shaped by Regional Discipline

Dei Cantoni's kitchen reflects Romagna's place within Italian gastronomy. The region has not, historically, produced the density of destination restaurants found in Piedmont or along the Amalfi coast. Addresses like Piazza Duomo in Alba, Quattro Passi in Marina del Cantone, or Reale in Castel di Sangro draw from different regional traditions and occupy a different tier of recognition. Romagna's strength has tended to be horizontal rather than vertical: a wide base of competent, honest trattorie rather than a narrow peak of Michelin-starred prestige.

Chef Franco's approach reflects that horizontal tradition. The emphasis on house-made pasta is not an affectation but a professional discipline that defines quality at the foundational level. In a region where sfogline, the women traditionally responsible for rolling pasta by hand, represent a living culinary craft, maintaining that practice in a restaurant kitchen signals where the kitchen's priorities sit. Alongside imaginative dishes that presumably draw on seasonal Romagnolo produce, the inclusion of Roman sauce traditions like carbonara and amatriciana suggests a kitchen comfortable enough in its own identity to borrow without anxiety.

Its location in Longiano rather than a larger coastal or urban centre gives it a character that is harder to replicate. The hamlet setting reduces foot traffic by definition, which means the 4.5 rating across over 1,077 Google reviews represents a loyal and returning audience rather than a tourist-driven average.

The Dining Room and the Setting

The dining room at Dei Cantoni reads as traditional, with stone and warm materials that do not compete with the medieval fabric surrounding it. In small hill-town restaurants of this type across central Italy, the room tends to feel continuous with the village rather than staged as a separate experience. That coherence between setting and interior is something that can be designed for in larger urban restaurants but is genuinely difficult to manufacture when the building and the street outside both pre-date modern hospitality entirely.

Dei Cantoni sits within a small dining scene in Longiano. Magnolia offers Contemporary Italian and Creative cooking at the same address, and Terre Alte brings a seafood focus to the town's restaurant offer.

Dei Cantoni sits at €€ pricing, which in the Romagna context means a meal built around house-made pasta and regionally sourced ingredients without the cost structure of a multi-course tasting format. For those tracing the broader arc of Romagna's restaurant tradition, it connects to a regional category that also includes Il Chiosco di Bacco in Torriana and, further afield in Rome, Ristorante del Lago, which also works within a Romagna-influenced register.

Planning Your Visit

Dei Cantoni is located at Via Santa Maria, 19, in the centre of Longiano's medieval hamlet, approximately an hour's drive south of Bologna and around 15 kilometres inland from the Adriatic coast near Cesenatico. The address is accessible by car and, given the small scale of the settlement, parking is generally manageable. Reservations are recommended, particularly on weekends. The €€ price range makes it a practical lunch or dinner choice without requiring significant advance financial planning, and the format suits both a mid-journey stop and a deliberate destination meal within a longer Romagna itinerary.