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Florence's robust community of restaurateurs, market sellers and generational purveyors pay respect to the Tuscan region’s humble cucina povera (peasant cuisine) spotlighting Florence’s must-try foods for curious diners.
Here’s what to be on the lookout for:
Crostini With Chicken Liver Pâté
Tuscans are proud of their waste-not philosophy, and these antipasti (appetizers) are an ode to that ethos. This pâté uses up scraps of chicken liver plus butter, capers and a touch of anchovies, spread on either baguette slices or Tuscan saltless bread. The best places to partake in this antipasto rite of passage would be at traditional restaurants who take care in preparing this indulgent spread with quality ingredients that make it craveable. You can’t go wrong with classics like Cibrèo (orits affiliated trattoria, Il Cibrèino) or Il Latini, hidden off a tiny street near the main train station.
Coccoli
Coccoli con stracchino e prosciutto are street food antipasti comprised of fried dough spheres — think pizza dough if fried and salted. Take a piece, open it up and slather it with fresh stracchino cheese, then stuff it with a slice of salty, peppery Tuscan prosciutto. At refined trattoria L’Ortone in Sant’Ambrogio (known as a market district), this indulgent starter comes with sweet slices of coveted prosciutto di San Daniele in lieu of Tuscany’s more rustic ham.
Tuscan Cured Meats
Florence is a meat city and its cured meats are the star of many tagliere (charcuterie) platters. Besides regional takes on salami with large lardons and pepper-crusted prosciutto, the most unique affettato (cold cut) is la finocchiona, a soft, fennel-laced salami. Its cousin sbriciolona is nearly the same, but with a crumbly texture because it’s aged less. The Oltrarno district’s Il Santo Bevitore — which boasts a romantic candlelit atmosphere and a noteworthy wine list — is where you’ll find some of the city’s most artisanal versions, sourced from local heritage pig breeds like Cinta Senese.
Zuppe
True Florentine primi (first courses) are centered on minestrone, legume and seasonal vegetable zuppe (soups), some with stale chunks of unsalted Tuscan bread. (Saltless bread dates back to medieval salt wars, and it was never added back in per proud tradition.) Representative Florentine zuppe to look for are pappa al pomodoro, a thick stew of Tuscan bread cooked with tomato, garlic and basil, and ribollita, woven with bread, cannellini beans, kale and carrots with fresh and dried aromatics. A nearly forgotten soup to watch for is carabaccia, an onion soup traditionally made with heritage sweet Certaldo onions. Da Burde’s zuppe alone are worth the taxi ride to the outskirts. In the city center, locals prefer Trattoria Cibrèino over Cibrèo’s ristorante next door. Open since 1979, Cibrèino remains one of Florence’s most reputable kitchens for homey Tuscan dishes made with meticulously selected market-sourced ingredients.
Pici Pasta
The name pici comes from the term appiciare, which refers to the way these long, thick noodles are rolled by hand. As far back as the pre-Roman civilization of the Etruscans, this everyday pasta of the Sienese peasants has been made from just flour and water. Pici is traditionally served with one of three sauces: aglione (a tomato sauce flavored with rich Tuscan “elephant garlic,” huge bulbs that are technically leeks), sugo (a meat ragu) or con le briciole (tossed with breadcrumbs that have been toasted with garlic and chile). For those on the hunt for wild boar, you’ll find it dressed on Tuscan pastas like pappardelle as well as pici pasta strands.
Bear in mind these noble pastas originate from the Siena province but are found on trattoria menus around Florence. Zeb, located in the charming San Niccolò neighborhood under the busy Piazzale Michelangelo, is a rather special gem. It was even named for the initials of benchmark Florentine comfort dishes: Zuppe E Bollito, soups and meat stews.
The trattoria has a sleek, contemporary feel and a dizzying selection of artisanal wines from France and Italy. While soups and meat stews like peposo are the calling card of the mother and son duo behind Zeb, their hand-rolled stuffed pastas and pici also shine, complemented with slow-cooked meat sugos.
Seasonal One-Ingredient Vegetable Sides
Each season brings a cherished vegetable: winter artichokes, spring asparagus, summer zucchini flowers and porcini during the fall. When in full swing, they populate menus of contorni (side dishes) and antipasti, sometimes served alone to highlight the freshness of a seasonal star, and sometimes fried as decadent savory treats.
For a contemporary twist, Nugolo highlights biodiverse heritage produce from its garden, like asparagus with mint or favas with sous vide eggs. Or head across the river to C-ucina for a convergence of world spices, like Tuscan minestrone spiked with curry.
Trippa alla Fiorentina
Florentines cherish their trattoria bowls of trippa alla Fiorentina almost as much as the Romans love their trippa alla romana. Both are made from tripe — cow stomach — and served in a rich tomato sauce. But Florence’s trippa gets its flavor from aromatic soffritto, the classic Italian base for sauces and soups that’s made with sauteed onion, carrot and celery, and it’s finished with parmigiano-reggiano cheese — versus Rome’s, which is topped with mint and salty pecorino romano.
Take a break from Tuscany’s rich pastas with a bowl of trippa to get a taste of a protein favored by Florentines when they’re not digging into steak. It may be harder to find on menus these days but it’s still honored at traditional trattorias like Da Burde that are dedicated to Florentine cuisine through protected family recipes.
Bistecca alla Fiorentina
Florence’s favorite steak is emblematic of the city’s reputation as a meat city. Its origins date back to 1565 when the Medici family hosted a wedding celebration inviting its citizens to an open-air barbecue of an entire ox. According to legend, foreign visitors called it “beefsteak” and “bistecca” was adopted by locals. Historically steaks were made from the working Chianina breed native to the nearby Val di Chiana valley. Modern restaurateurs prefer less tough (and costly) varieties from Piedmont, in the Alpine foothills, or from outside Italy.
This steak is all about simplicity and intended to be eaten in carnivorous company: It’s cut by the pound, three fingers’ width thick, seasoned simply, grilled for a few minutes on each side and served rare — never more. It’s often paired with rosemary roasted potatoes, white beans, a fried seasonal specialty or a sauteed green like kale, chard or spinach.
If you’re lucky and it’s on the menu, try it with fagioli all’uccelleto, Tuscan baked beans cooked in tomato, garlic and sage. Bistecca alla Fiorentina is at its best at Del Fagioli, with varied traditional sides on offer, or at century-old Il Latini with roast potatoes and Chianti.
Piccione
Piccione (pigeon — or more accurately, squab) represents the respect Tuscans have for cooking whole animals and for game meats beyond boar. Best to roll up your sleeves and eat it straight off the bone: The flavorful, fatty dark meat is worth the work. Historically the small game birds were easy to keep in both rural and aristocratic households, unlike larger poultry. Piccione’s place in Tuscan cuisine goes back to medieval times when it was traditionally roasted whole with aromatics such as sage and rosemary. Today fine dining destinations elevate it: Locale, housed downtown in a former Medici residence, deconstruct and glaze their piccione with distinct flavors like miso and truffle. Atto di Vito Mollica, helmed by one of Florence’s longstanding star chefs, does squab barbecued with heirloom fruits and Sorrento walnuts in an ornate 16th-century palace.
For a more modern dining experience, Io Osteria Personale in San Frediano is one of Florence’s 1st contemporary trailblazers. Game meats like pigeon are paired with seasonal flair like foraged mushrooms or winter cardoons.
Cantucci
In Italian, all cookies are biscotti but not all biscotti are cantucci. These dry, crunchy almond cookies (whose name means “little corners”) are often served at the end of an Italian meal with vin santo (a dessert wine made from raisins) or a small shot of espresso. The twice-cooked cookies hail from Prato, where the recipe was perfected by baker Antonio Mattei. This way to end a meal is especially nostalgic to Florentines who take a childlike joy dunking these crisp corners into sweet wine or espresso. They’re best had at traditional trattorias like Del Fagioli where they are baked on-site, as if by the Tuscan nonna (grandmother) you never had.
Alchermes and the Zuccotto
This ancient Florentine liqueur is accented by rose and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and is easily recognized by its bright ladybug-red hue. The name comes from the Arabic al-qirmiz, referring to the dried insects that originally provided its red shade. Born as a restorative cordial by apothecaries in the medieval times then parlayed into a dessert liqueur, it was favored by Caterina de’ Medici during the Renaissance and persists today (without the bugs) in cocktails, cookies and desserts.
Saporium, perched along the Arno River under the tower of San Niccolò, redefines one of Caterina’s favored desserts: zuccotto. This sponge cake soaked with alchermes and filled with ricotta or gelato and chocolate comes served in the shape of an alchermes-coated rose.
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