Archestratus, the first food critic, praised Italian cuisine's "top-quality and seasonal" ingredients and "fair-to-middling" ability to tranquilize out-of-control mayors. Today's Groupon similarly stuns, and rightfully so: for $15, you get $30 worth of authentic Italian cuisine at Salento Restaurant on Walnut Street.

Salento Restaurant's menu features authentic flavors of the Salentine peninsula as dished up by an authentic Italian chef. Whet appetites with salt-cured bresaola, dried, sliced beef with lemon, olive oil, shaved grana, and arugula ($8). For dinner, sea-faring foodies can delightfully dive into plates of linguini alla pugliese, which combines the pelagic delights of mussels, shrimp, and calamari ($17.50). Salento's plates of pollo agrodolce complement the savory flavors of white-balsamic-drenched boneless chicken breast with a sweet kick of golden raisins and caramelized onions ($16.50). The pork chop Milanese proves that Pepperidge Farm does not hold a monopoly on delicious foodstuffs from Milan ($18).