Food in Florence
You're sure to try some Italian cuisine on your trip, and with our guide you can discover the Florentine culinary offering, from appetisers to desserts.
Whet your appetite
Fettunta
For a simple, tasty aperitif. Strictly Tuscan bread (saltless), toasted with olive oil and salt.
Tuscan Crostini
The essential traditional appetiser of Tuscan cuisine. A tasty and rich chicken liver pâté that owes its unique taste to the addition of anchovies and capers.
Bread-based first courses
Ribollita
A traditional dish popular during winter, with black cabbage as the main ingredient. The slowly boiled vegetables and leftover bread create a delicious steaming cream. The dish is usually accompanied by toasted bread and cannellini beans, to add even more flavour.
PANZANELLA
Stale Tuscan bread left to rest for a few hours in water: this is the basis for one of the most famous recipes in Florence! The original recipe uses a dressing based on thinly sliced onion and fresh cucumber, but the dish has evolved over time with the addition of tomatoes.
For a second course, Florence has some unique meat specialities
Bistecca alla Fiorentina
The height of Florentine gastronomy. This cut of meat is from the lumbar, which explains its T shape. Preparation instructions: must be cooked in its blood!
Lampredotto
Like all the dishes from Florentine peasant tradition, even the Lampredotto has marked its claim to fame within Tuscan street food. Gently boiling the abomasum (a cow's fourth stomach), results in a tender meat with a unique taste that is usually served in a takeaway sandwich. You can taste it at the famous kiosks, the "lampredottai". Don't forget to ask for the accompanying green sauce!
Florentine-style tripe
In honour of Florence's culinary tradition, we present you the Florentine tripe. Slow cooked, aroma, and lots of sauce. As always, the simplest things are the best, with this ancient dish that can please everybody.
And finally... the desserts!
Zuccotto
This is a dessert with a funny name! It comes from the first container it was created in, which was a helmet called the zuccotto. A sponge cake base soaked in alchermes liqueur with an ice cream filling with chocolate chips... how wonderful!
Schiacciata alla Fiorentina
The dessert of the Carnival: on the counters of bars and pastry shops you can find many versions of this typical dessert. It's a soft dough with a chantilly cream filling and a sprinkling of icing sugar.
Zuppa Inglese
The zuppa inglese has quite a story to tell.It's a creamy dessert that came about by pure chance: legend has it that a cook serving an English family in Florence improvised this dessert by soaking dry biscuits in rosolio liqueur. The ingredients of zuppa inglese include the pungent taste of Alchermes liqueur, the sweetness of the custard and cocoa creams, and the crunchiness of the dark chocolate chips.
