What to Eat in Florence
Florence (Firenze in Italian) is the capital of Tuscany, the cradle of the Renaissance and for centuries the seat of the Medici family. Two food worlds have lived side by side here for centuries: the splendor of the court, which gave the world the legend of gelato and the Negroni cocktail, and the humble offal cooking of the poor, where lampredotto, the tripe sandwich, still reigns today. Between Brunelleschi's dome and the market stalls, one is never more than a few steps from the other.
Historical Influences on Florentine Cuisine
Florentine cooking has two faces. The first was shaped by the banquets of the Medici court - that's where the legends about the invention of gelato and the dome-shaped dessert zuccotto come from. The second was shaped by working-class Florence: the best cuts of meat ended up on palace tables, and the poor were left with the "quinto quarto", the fifth quarter - offal and everything else that remained once the animal had been butchered. Most of the dishes Florence is still famous for come from those humble kitchens of the poor - lampredotto and tripe alla fiorentina among them. On menus you'll also come across Tuscan classics like ribollita, pappa al pomodoro or crostini with chicken liver pâté, but those belong to the whole region, not just to Florence.
The local bread is part of the same peasant tradition: it's baked without salt, and Tuscans call it "sciocco", meaning bland. It was already unsalted in Dante's day - in the Paradiso of his Divine Comedy, the Florence-born poet describes the bitterness of exile with the line "you shall learn how salt is the taste of another's bread". Legend dates its origins to a medieval feud with Pisa, which controlled the salt trade and taxed salt so heavily that the Florentines left it out of their dough in protest. Today the unsalted loaf is protected across Tuscany by the Pane Toscano DOP designation.
When Florence served as the capital of newly unified Italy from 1865 to 1871, a major rebuilding of the center swept away the old central market too - today's Piazza della Repubblica stands in its place. It was replaced by a pair of cast-iron market halls designed by Giuseppe Mengoni, the architect of Milan's famous galleria: the Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio (1873), where the shoppers are still mostly Florentines, and the more famous, tourist-thronged Mercato Centrale (1874) in the San Lorenzo district, long associated with the offal tradition. The city's oldest market, though, is still the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo from 1550, which nobody calls anything but "the Porcellino" - after the bronze boar whose snout passersby rub for luck. And when the city celebrates the feast of San Lorenzo on August 10, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages comes to life: back then the city's rulers had oxen roasted in the squares and the meat handed out to the people. Today it takes the form of the "cocomerata", when the Mercato Centrale gives away more than two tons of watermelon.
And one myth to finish: after marrying the future king of France in 1533, Catherine de' Medici supposedly brought Florentine cooks to Paris and "taught the French how to cook". The story is only three hundred years old - it first appeared in 1719, and there isn't a single cook among the documented members of young Catherine's entourage. The real food legacy of the Medici lies elsewhere: in 1716, Grand Duke Cosimo III issued an edict defining the Chianti wine area, the oldest wine appellation in the world. Wines from the hills right around the city still carry their own designation, Chianti Colli Fiorentini.
Wine Windows (Buchette del Vino)
This is something you won't find anywhere but Florence: small arched windows in palace facades, through which noble families sold wine from their own vineyards straight to passersby from the 16th century on - with no innkeepers and no taxes. Names like Antinori and Frescobaldi turned their palaces into wine outlets long before their wineries became global brands. During the plague of 1630-1633, the windows became a form of contactless service: coins were passed on a metal paddle and dipped in vinegar, and the wine flowed out through a small pipe. History repeated itself during the covid pandemic, when some places reopened their windows - and after a CNN report they became a tourist attraction. Around 180 windows survive in the city; only a handful of places still pour a glass of wine through a buchetta today, such as the Babae wine bar in the Santo Spirito district.
What to Eat in Florence
- Bistecca alla fiorentina. The Florentine steak: a T-bone cut that can easily be more than five centimeters thick, seared briefly over glowing coals and left rare inside - nobody here orders it well done. The meat comes from the giant white Chianina breed of the Val di Chiana. The dish bears the city's name, and according to tradition the word "bistecca" itself was born here too - from English guests shouting "beef steak!" at the feasts of San Lorenzo, where the Medici had beef roasted for the people.
- Lampredotto. A bread roll called a semelle filled with slow-cooked beef abomasum (the fourth stomach) and topped with green salsa verde. It's Florence's most famous street food and a dish you'll hardly find anywhere outside the city - it's sold from street stalls by the trippai, heirs to one of the oldest and most respected Florentine guilds. It takes its name from the lamprey (lampreda), which once lived in the Arno and which beef stomach resembles in both color and shape.
- Trippa alla fiorentina. Florentine-style tripe: strips of rumen and honeycomb tripe stewed in tomato sauce and sprinkled with Parmesan. Steaming little tripe shops stood by the Arno as early as the 15th century. Even tourist guidebooks mix it up with lampredotto, yet the difference matters: trippa is made from the first stomachs and cooked in tomato sauce, lampredotto from the fourth stomach cooked in broth.
- Gelato Buontalenti (crema fiorentina). Florence considers itself the birthplace of modern gelato. Tradition has it that it was invented for the festivities of the Medici court by the Renaissance architect and stage designer Bernardo Buontalenti; a rival version gives the credit to Ruggeri, a poultry seller who cooked purely for the love of it. The fact that two Florentines are arguing over the invention says it all. The creamy egg flavor "Buontalenti" is still a specialty of the city's gelaterias.
- Negroni. The famous cocktail of gin, Campari and red vermouth was born right here in Florence: sometime in 1919 or 1920, at Caffè Casoni (today Caffè Giacosa) on via de' Tornabuoni, Count Camillo Negroni asked the bartender Fosco Scarselli to swap the soda water in his favorite Americano for gin. Other customers started ordering "an Americano the Count Negroni way" - and the shortened name went around the world.
- Schiacciata alla fiorentina. A low, fluffy carnival cake fragrant with orange, dusted with powdered sugar and decorated with the Florentine lily in cocoa. It turns up as far back as the writings of the renowned food writer Pellegrino Artusi, and one version of its history leads to the Le Murate convent, where nuns baked it in the 18th century. You'll only find it during carnival season - the rest of the year, Florentine bakeries simply don't make it.
- Coccoli. Balls of yeast dough fried until golden, named after the cypress cones they resemble. Fried dough goes by different names all over Tuscany, but Florence has settled on its own combination: hot coccoli, cold creamy stracchino cheese and a slice of prosciutto.
- Zuccotto. A dome-shaped dessert of sponge cake soaked in liqueur and filled with ricotta cream, chocolate and orange peel. Legend has it that it was invented at the Medici court by none other than the ever-present Buontalenti, and its shape recalls the helmet of the Florentine infantry, called a zuccotto; it was supposedly first known as "Elmo di Caterina" - Catherine's helmet.
- … and dozens more Italian dishes on the list: What to Eat in Italy.
Where to Eat in Florence
- Trattoria Sostanza. A trattoria from 1869 near Piazza Ognissanti, known among locals by the nickname "il Troia" - after a cook who supposedly welcomed guests with hands greasy from cooking. A marble counter, white tiles, an open kitchen and two famous dishes: tortino di carciofi (an artichoke bake) and pollo al burro, chicken cooked in butter.
- Trattoria Mario. A family trattoria behind the Mercato Centrale, run by the third generation since 1953; it started out as a wine bar for porters and butchers from the market. Open for lunch only, no reservations, with shared tables under a coffered wooden ceiling from the mid-16th century. On the table: trippa, pappa al pomodoro or bistecca.
- Buca Lapi. One of the city's oldest restaurants (1880), in the cellars of the Renaissance Palazzo Antinori - a typical Florentine "buca", a restaurant tucked into the basement of a palace. Frescoed vaults, with bistecca alla fiorentina as the main event.
- Nerbone. A stall inside the Mercato Centrale that has been running since 1872, one of the oldest businesses in the market. You eat your panino with lampredotto or boiled beef (bollito) standing at the counter among the stalls.
- Trippaio del Porcellino. A stall on the corner by the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo, where trippa and lampredotto have been sold since 1893 - its founder Leonello Frullini, known as "Bubu", started out here with a cart. Today it's one of the most photographed stalls in the center.
- All'Antico Vinaio. A phenomenon from Via dei Neri: since 1989 this little shop has grown into the world's most famous schiacciateria and today an international chain, with lines for stuffed schiacciata stretching the length of the street. It stopped being a local secret long ago, but it's part of today's Florence all the same.
- Caffè Gilli. Florence's oldest café, founded back in 1733 as a pastry shop; since 1910 it has stood on Piazza della Repubblica, with an Art Nouveau interior and Murano glass chandeliers. On the same square it has two other historic cafés for neighbors - Paszkowski and Le Giubbe Rosse, where the Futurists gathered among waiters in red jackets and which is now a protected cultural landmark.
- Caffè Rivoire. A chocolate maker and café on Piazza della Signoria, founded in 1872 by Enrico Rivoire, a chocolatier from Savoy who supplied chocolate to the royal family. Hot chocolate with a view straight onto the Palazzo Vecchio.
- Procacci. A tiny delicatessen on via de' Tornabuoni dating from 1885, famous for its truffle sandwiches, panini tartufati - in 1925 Leopoldo Procacci served them to Prince Umberto and earned himself a royal warrant.
- Vivoli. The city's oldest gelateria (1929), in the Santa Croce district and run by the fourth generation of the family. Classic creamy flavors, zuccotto and the coffee affogato "Gran crema al caffè".
- Cantinetta Antinori. In 1957 the Antinori wine family opened a restaurant serving Tuscan food and their own wines on the ground floor of the Renaissance palace they have owned since 1506 - a modern continuation of the days when wine from the palace was sold through a window.
- Babae. A small place in the Santo Spirito district that has revived the tradition of the wine windows - they'll hand you a glass of wine through a real buchetta, straight out onto the street.
In Florence, a café from 1733 and a tripe stall are just a few minutes' walk apart - and the city's whole cuisine plays out between those two extremes.
Enjoy eating your way around Florence!
