It's no secret that Florence isn't my favorite, whether for food or otherwise. In fact, if you are reading this and still in the midst of deciding your Italy itinerary, go to Rome, Naples, Palermo, or Modena instead. Real talk: Florence is flooded with tourists in a way that makes Rome look like a ghost town.This has been true for years and now it’s even worse, to the point that it’s simply not an enjoyable experience, and the “low season” of supposedly fewer crowds is almost non-existent. Even if you seek out the slightly less sought-out sights (the Brancacci Chapel, the interior and cloisters of of Santa Maria Novella and Brunelleschi’s Basilica Santo Spirito, the Palazzo Medici Riccardi for its frescoes, the Museo San Marco with its preserved monastic dormitory, Michelangelo’s house, the late-medieval Palazzo Davanzati’s domestic period rooms), I promise you will have better food and an overall better travel experience (and promote more sustainable tourism!) in almost any other Italian city or region.
My co-host of the Gola Podcast, on the other hand, has chosen to make Florence her part-time home, and Dr. Callegari has good taste. In our podcast episode about Firenze, I acknowledge that Florence isn't all bad, which is partly thanks to a select number of places that stand out from the usual Florentine fare--both old-school establishments that merit culinary respect and some newcomers that are adventurously (gratefully) bucking tradition and looking outside of Tuscany for inspiration. Consider this a list of the city’s redeeming qualities, so that if you do find yourself in Florence despite your best efforts, you can at least support good people and have a good meal.
Trattorie and Ristoranti:
Cammillo: The BEST PLACE for a classic ristorante meal (they call themselves a trattoria but it’s a more elegant level, in its white tablecloths and in its prices). The menu is long and special, with many fritti (vegetable and otherwise--order at least two, and prioritize funghi), extremely delicate hand-rolled pastas that benefit from the restaurant’s part-emiliano-romagnolo roots, and more vegetable contorni than possibly any other place in town. It might be the most butter you’ll consume in Tuscany, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Dalla Lola: The Tuscan trattoria reinvented, and remarkably inexpensive for its modern creativity. Owner Matilde Pettini practically grew up at Trattoria Cammillo, which has been in her family’s ownership for generations, but at Dalla Lola she turns the classics on their heads and brings Tuscan food into the modern era, making it then relatively un-Tuscan (spice! Seasoning! Dressed salads!) and changing the menu every few nights. Since being featured on the New York Times’ 36 Hours list, Dalla Lola hasn’t moved too far into the limelight to lose its irreverent, laid-back vibe and it still attracts plenty of locals from an older-than-millennial crowd that Matilde is loyal to. Under Matilde’s laissez-faire attitude, it’s the kind of place where you can get funky with your order and not stick to the Italian culinary “rules”--so go ahead and get one or two more pastas than the number of people at your table. (You’ll want to.) The wine is overall natural and organic and there are plenty of bottles from outside of Tuscany (another rarity in the city, though more exceptions below) that Matilde picks up from small producers when she’s driving around the countryside. And don’t skip the house-made desserts, which make up one of the most enticing lists in the city. Reserve via dm on Instagram (@dalla_lola).
Enoteca Spontanea: Calls itself a wine bar because you can go when it opens at 5:00 pm for spontaneously fermented wines (and a long list of them), but it’s a full restaurant after 7:30, which is absolutely worth staying around for. You might even stay til close to midnight because it’s that kind of intimate space that feels like you’re eating at the owner’s, Nico’s, house (it’s just him and his sister Irene running the show), albeit with more elevated but unpretentious dishes with a good focus on local produce and producers. Like most Italian eateries but even more so, this is not the place for an in-and-out meal; prepare to dine at a leisurely pace with someone you really like, with stellar wine to tide you over and help you eat almost everything on the menu. In a city full of chicken liver crostini, Spontanea’s stand out, with a lusciously whipped pâté and housemade sourdough that exists contrary to the Tuscan tradition of unsalted, uninteresting bread. The same goes for the chocolate cake, which you should not share.
Trattoria Ruggero: By now you might have guessed that going outside the center of Florence, or of most big cities for that matter, is a wise strategy for not only peace and quiet but also to see how the locals eat. Ruggero is in the lovely Porta Romana neighborhood just outside the old city walls (a non-dramatic walking distance of about 15 minutes from Santo Spirito) and is classic, no-frills trattoria dining, but with a level of attention to seasonal produce that plenty of its counterparts in the center ignore. It’s also always buzzy with neighborhood fiorentini (more so in the later half of the evening, after 9pm) so make sure to reserve. Take some time before dinner to walk around Porta Romana--you can get beautiful green space by heading up any of the tree-lined boulevards that lead uphill from the traffic circle/piazzale, or have an aperitivo at the small cafe bar, Bar d'Angolo, tucked inside the Porta (on the city center side), which is equally no-frills and yet feels like the hippest place you could possibly sit outside.
Trattoria Marione: Good classic option in the center when you want it.
Sergio Gozzi: When you’re in the center and need a good sit-down lunch, but they’re only open for lunch.
Buca dell’Orafo: Even if it’s not so secret anymore, Buca dell’Orafo is at least physically a hole in the wall to charming effect--tucked into a small space under the arcade behind the Ponte Vecchio (once known as the area where the city’s goldsmiths or orafi worked), it too is a more upper-crust trattoria like Cammillo, but more intimate. Another chance to have perfect porcini fritti when they’re in season and some more interesting twists on fresh pastas and secondi that remain elegant and understated, alongside the classics. Outside, you can see one of the city’s old wine windows (buchette del vino), a vestige of Renaissance Florence; this one, like many, is boarded up, but with a little imagination you can pretend wine is being passed through it and skip the lines at the other buchette in the city that operate out of a few bars.
Il Guscio: A slightly sleek, contemporary-chic restaurant with a fish and seafood focus, between the San Frediano and Santo Spirito neighborhoods.
Posh/More Expensive:
Cibrèo and its affiliated establishments: There’s Cibrèo Ristorante, Cibrèo Trattoria, and Cibrèo Caffè, with different menus and levels of formality respective to each. The late chef Fabio Picchi opened the Ristorante in the 70s, which is slightly haute, the trattoria less so. Despite its name, even the Caffè is open for dinner (and all day) and is a good way to experience the Cibrèo milieu if cheffyness is what you seek, but at a more low-key (and price-friendly) level. The morning pastries at the Caffè are worth popping in for, too, and you can even get them simply at the counter to take away rather than doing the whole sit-down affair. Go to the original location by the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio, which you should be going to during the day anyway; the newly opened location in the Helvetia & Bristol hotel is, predictably, a more fancy-touristy crowd.
Ora d’Aria: A Michelin-starred restaurant just between the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio, for when you want to get fancy.
Picteau Bar and Borgo San Jacopo restaurant: Both are in the Hotel Lungarno, perfectly situated on the Oltrarno side of the river but miraculously serene and friendly. The bar is very good for a fancy aperitivo (read: several pages’ worth of craft 18-euro+ cocktails and a view of the Ponte Vecchio) or when you’re with people you want to impress. Inside isn’t at all bad, but try to reserve outside if you want even more of that view (and reserve in general). Obviously the same goes for the restaurant, which is Michelin-starred and serves a tasting menu as well as à la carte, both of which offer the kind of food you expect at a tasting menu kind of place, with local ingredients.
Bars and Wine Bars:
Bulli & Balene: Cool hipster bar vibes with a simple list of very good spritzes in all their iterations and many cicchetti (Venetian tapas). Very buzzy in the warm weather when the (not overwhelming) crowd spills out into the little Piazza della Passera, which often feels like the place to be in Santo Spirito.
Vineria Sonara: Natural wines and small plates with a side of vinyls.
Formaggioteca Terroir: A pleasantly underrated spot for wine and really good cheese in a quiet stretch of the Lungarno.
Il Santino: Across from the crowds taking pictures of the wine window at Babae bar, Il Santino is a crowd perhaps just as numerous but consisting mostly of residents drinking good wine in the street. The interior is too cozy to fit all of them, but isn’t bad on that rare quiet night. Next door is the wine bar’s big sibling, the restaurant Il Santo Bevitore, which gets more hype than it’s worth but knows how to do good restaurant design.
Pastries/Coffee, Daytime Caffès, and Delis/Gastronomie:
S. Forno: The bakery from the same family of Il Santo Bevitore, right nearby on Via Santa Monaca. In the morning, you can get some of the city’s better pastries and sweets, both Tuscan and non-Italian things. It's also one of the few places with a chill coffee-shop vibe that manages to not feel American nor laptop-heavy. On the daily lunch menu, there is always a perfect soup, a generous and lovely non-Italian salad with seasonal stuff, one or two quiches that are usually great, and a few creative sandwiches and good pizza al taglio (not easy to find in Florence), all made with their various (good!) breads and sourdough. You can shop for a few of the international ingredients you’re craving here, too.
Deli 1981/Terre Nobili: Also in Porta Romana, this gastronomia (deli and fancy market) is worth picking up provisions from if you’re in the neighborhood and want food for takeout or a picnic--or even better, stay for a lowkey meal where you tell the people behind the counter which of the various prepared foods you’d like on a plate, and they heat it all up for you to eat on a little table squeezed next to the pantry shelves. They’ll pour you a glass of nice wine that is always more interesting than you’d expect in this meal format. The gastronomia category in Florence is generally a great way to eat.
Pasticceria Nencioni: Near the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio, a perfect and chaotic pasticceria with some of the best pastries in the center.
Caffè Gilli: If you want to experience Florence’s old-school, grand Belle-Epoque pasticcerie in the midst of all the sights, Gilli is a better option than most, but don’t sit at a table and pay for the overpriced situation--the bar remains normally priced and is the Italian way to do things, anyway. In the winter, Gilli’s fritelle di riso (little rice-pudding-ish fritters that deserve more excitement than most other Florentine specialties) during Carnevale season are some of the best you can find, other than at Nencioni.
Panini and Street Food:
Keeping in mind the goals of promoting sustainable tourism and having good meals where the locals eat (and while we’re at it, avoiding Tik Tok crazes), we will not be directing you to All’Antico Vinaio and instead suggest you walk very far away, avoiding it by at least a several-block radius to not get stuck in the crowds. Hopefully this is intuitive already if you’ve consumed other Florence content in the last couple of years, but suffice it to say there is no need to wait in any kind of line for a maximalist panino of unnecessary hype.
’Ino sandwich shop: When you do want a panino, go here. Very centrally located just under the Uffizi, but usually quiet.
Mercato Sant’Ambrogio: The best classic market in the city, where Florentines shop for their daily produce outside and their meat, fish, and other provisions inside (unlike the Mercato Centrale, which is mostly a food hall with more commercial eateries). But it’s also a great place to eat for lunch, or sample many street-foody snacks in the morning from the various counters. The forno/gastronomia (bakery/deli) on the southwest side is the best place to try a little bit of everything sweet and savory, including coccoli (Florence’s term for fried balls of pizza dough, one of the city’s best snacks despite being so simple), which you can (and should) ask to be stuffed with the traditional stracchino cheese and prosciutto. Across from their counter is Il Cernacchino, where you can buy high-quality pantry ingredients from Italy’s best producers (as well as international ingredients, which you will want if you’re in Florence for an extended time and cooking at home). The market closes at 2pm every day and is closed on Sundays.
Trippaio Mario: This stand is another reason to go to the Porta Romana neighborhood, and my preferred spot for classic panino con lampredotto, the Florentine tripe sandwich, but there are also several other meat options. You’ll find it on the east side of the Piazzale di Porta Romana (traffic circle), just outside the park entrance; it’s typically open 9:00am-3:00pm except on Sundays.
Osteria Tripperia Il Magazzino: More great Florentine tripe in a sit-down osteria setting, in the cute Piazza della Passera.
Arà: Artigiani e Siciliani: Often in Florence it’s worth eating outside the Tuscan tradition, and Arà is a worthy example. Right across from the Galleria Accademia at their Via degli Alfani location, you can have perfectly made arancini and other Sicilian street food, order-at-the-counter-style, but there are also bar stools and small tables outside. They also have a great selection of natural Sicilian wines. The gelato is skippable but the Sicilian pastries are nice and classic. The same group also has a sit-down trattoria, but for that kind of meal it’s better to go to Sicily itself.
Gelato:
Gelateria della Passera: In the aforementioned small but popular piazza, this gelateria has also become more popular even in just the last year, but if you go when it opens around noon and into early lunchtime, or after the mid-afternoon rush, you’ll have better luck of instant satisfaction. Their chocolate flavors and sorbets are particularly good, including the almond one that tastes like the closest you can get to a Sicilian granita.
Sbrino: The recent redesign of the Santo Spirito location makes this look a little less inviting/less elegant than it is, but the gelato is still the same artisanal goodness. They also have a Porta Romana location just off of the Piazzale, which is more like a counter/window but obviously quieter.
La Sorbettiera: Another ideal artisanal option, leaning slightly more classic in its flavor offerings compared to the previous two. The main location is very conveniently at the base of the Piazza Santo Spirito, with a smaller one in the nearby Piazza Tasso and another near the train station.
My Sugar: Bad name, but fabulous black sesame gelato and one of the only artisanal options in the immediate center. Edoardo is the other, but it’s at the edge of the Duomo, which I avoid at all costs.
Vivoli: Now known for its Tik Tok- and Instagram-famous affogatto, which is really only obsessed over for its appearance, Vivoli is one of the more historic gelaterie but unfortunately now too crowded to be worth it. Unless you go in the morning for a breakfast gelato, which should be more of a normalized thing anyway, but you can get better options from the places above.
More:
Saporita Supper Club is an extremely fun pop-up dinner series run by Sara Cagle, who makes it her mission to mix up Italian classics with international ingredients, inspired by dishes that she and her fellow Florentine transplants miss from home and their travels. Keep an eye out on Instagram for the nearly-monthly dinners and know that you’ll have a great time and even better food. You can also hit up Sara for private cooking classes in Florence or as a personal chef for a welcome breath of fresh air and creativity in your Tuscan food adventure.
A good rule to live by particularly when in Florence: Make reservations always, this city is crowded!
In my opinion, if you feel the need to “do” Tuscany, the best thing to do is go outside of Florence--check out my full guide on this dedicated page.
Looking for Florence tour recommendations in Florence? Get in touch and I’d be happy to refer some trusted colleagues for culinary and historic tours.
Shoutout to my editor Lydia O’Brien and Gola co-host Dr. Danielle Callegari for helping me build and write this list.
