Champagne with dinner in the heart of Lucca: what we pair
At 8 pm in the centre of Lucca, the question is not just where to sit down. It is whether you want a bottle opened with care, a dish that sits beside it without showing off, and a table where you can linger after dinner. That is exactly what we work on at Tomkat, at Via Calderia 12: seasonal cooking, a wine list that changes with every new edition and almost 200 labels, mostly from Italy and France.
Champagne is not an excuse to make the evening formal. It works with a Gillardeau oyster, of course. But it works just as well with something from the pantry, a well-chosen board of Comté, pecorino, Tuscan cured meats or Pata Negra. It depends on how hungry you are, how much time you have left in Lucca and how far you want to let the wine lead the dinner.
Champagne and dinner in Lucca, without needless rituals
We are a wine bar with a kitchen, not a dining room where the menu is recited. You sit down, look at the list, talk. Guests who are here for one night often come looking for a well-chosen French bottle, but find that first of all we pay close attention to Tuscany: Chianti Classico, Brunello, Bolgheri and mature vintages when we find them and they make sense on the list.
Then there is France. Burgundy, Champagne and Bordeaux, with a Bordeaux Experience built on mature vintages going back to the 1980s. It is not meant to impress anyone. It is meant to offer a real choice to those who want a bottle with a few years behind it rather than yet another release that has just hit the market.
Champagne is part of this list, not a separate corner with prices put there out of duty. We choose it because at the table it is far more versatile than people say. A bottle can open the evening and stay through to the main courses. Or a glass may be enough, if you are just passing through or have already decided to move on to a Tuscan red.
By the glass there are nine wines: five reds, three whites and one Champagne, from 8 to 18 euros. They change with every new edition of the list, so it is worth coming back on a weekday and finding something different, without having to order a whole bottle. Old vintages and mature Bordeaux are opened by the bottle only.
What to eat with Champagne at Tomkat
The kitchen follows the seasons and the menu is not fixed. So there is no point arriving with a pairing in mind that was written months earlier. We prefer to see what there is that evening and build the dinner on the spot.
The pantry is a good place to start, especially if you want a lighter dinner. Kalamata olives, Comté from the Jura, Tuscan pecorino, cured meats from Lucca and Tuscany, Pata Negra, Oscietra caviar and Gillardeau oysters let you keep things simple. A glass of Champagne, a few dishes to share, and there is no need to complicate anything else.
If instead you want to sit down for dinner, the kitchen has more substantial dishes, without dressing up as fine dining. On the menu right now there is salt cod in tomato sauce with chickpea purée, mixed-meat meatballs “rifatte” in tomato sauce, Tuscan style, pork ribs in sweet and sour sauce, slow-cooked beef roast with chimichurri sauce and risotto-style pasta with mixed tomatoes, as well as sourdough focaccia with organic Cilento tomato, lasagna with a 24-hour ragù and boneless honey and lemon chicken thigh. The next menu will bring other dishes. That is how we work: recognisable ingredients, dishes done well, a menu that follows the season.
With Champagne, the most immediate combinations are often those with salt, acidity, measured richness or something crunchy. The oyster is the obvious choice, and it works. Comté may be a less obvious choice and just as convincing. The salt cod, too, deserves a chat before you order. There is no automatic answer: a tauter bottle and a broader one call for different dishes.
For those who want to try more things, we offer a tasting menu shared by the whole table, at 40 euros per person. A pairing of three, five or seven wines can be added separately. You do not have to drink Champagne from start to finish. In fact, it is often more interesting to start with France and then move on to an Italian white or a Tuscan red, following what arrives at the table.
A Champagne tasting, if you have time
If you are looking for an evening built around French bubbles, there is the Champagne tasting. It is booked and paid online, starts at 6 pm, lasts about 90 minutes and is available in Italian and English. A minimum of four people is required for this tasting.
It is not a lesson with notes and definitions to take home. It is a chance to put a considered sequence in the glass and understand, as you drink, how much style, structure and food pairing can change. After the tasting you can stay for dinner, if you book your table in advance. Lucca is small, but on the busiest evenings tables go quickly.
We also have other tastings: Tomkat’s Choice, Tuscan Reds, Italian Reds, Burgundy Reds and White Wines of the World. Tomkat’s Choice starts at 20 euros and is available for one person too. The other tastings require at least four participants. As a gift, there is a tasting gift card from 50 to 250 euros, with no expiry date. Useful when you do not know which bottle to choose for someone and would rather give them an evening.
For those in Lucca for just a few days
Many of our guests are in town for one, two or three nights. They have seen the walls, they have walked enough and now they are looking for a place to eat and drink well without spending the evening comparing endless menus. For them, the advantage of Tomkat is simple: we can start from a glass of Champagne and get to a full dinner, or do the opposite and end the evening with a French bottle.
We are open Monday to Saturday, from 6 pm to 11 pm. We are closed on Sundays. For the same evening, it is best to check availability and book via OpenTable or on our booking page. If you have a specific time in mind, a small table or want to do a tasting before dinner, it is better not to leave everything to the last ten minutes.
Those coming back from Lucca, the surrounding plain or the Versilia coast find a different reason to drop in during the week too. The wines by the glass and the list change with every new edition, and the menu follows the season. One evening may be the right one for Champagne with oysters and cheese. The next, for opening a Tuscan red with a slow-cooked dish. We do not do evenings that are all the same, and it would be strange to expect that from a wine bar.
Our wine list has received a Silver Star in the Best Newcomer List category at the Star Wine List of the Year International Open 2025, and another in the Best Medium-Sized List category in 2026, as well as the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence in 2025 and 2026. They are welcome recognition, of course. But at the table they only count up to a point. What counts is that the bottle is the right one for your dinner, not the one with the longest CV.
Come in the mood for Champagne, or come without a precise idea. We start from there, look at what is in the kitchen and tell you what we would drink ourselves that evening.
The Tomkat team