Piccione

Definitely not the Trafalgar Square variety, or a common or garden wood pigeon, but domesticated doves. The amount of dovecotes around Britain suggest that we once ate them regularly, but this is no longer the case, as all the ones restaurants serve are imported. Because the little beasts eat enormous amounts of grain in their short lives, yet obstinately refuse to get very fat, they are expensive to rear, and this price is passed on right up the food chain. The pigeons for my restaurants come from a beautiful estate near Grosetto on the Tuscan coastal plains.