ICYMI: I’m a food blogger, certified Italian sommelier and culinary guide living in Florence since 2012 via Seattle. Apart from the blog, my writing appears on sites like Eater, Conde Nast Traveler, Infatuation and Wine Enthusiast. My food tours are recommended by Forbes, Frommer’s and Lonely Planet.
I’ve left this original 2016 post untouched for blogging nostalgia purposes—it captures one of the last golden moments of wholesome blogging innocence before AI, deep fakes and viral TikToks from parachute influencers started leading the current state of Idiocracy and the complete abandonment of thinking for ourselves and having an attention span longer than the blink from a pair of surveillance cybertruck sunnies. Long live messy run on sentences!!!
🏃🏻♀️ For an updated, comprehensive guide- here here: Understanding and Finding the Best Florentine Steak in Florence
In this guide on my food tour’s site Travel Tips corner, I do my very earnest best to break down what la bistecca is, common mistakes tourists make when ordering it (for respect’s sake please stop asking for medium or well-done this isn’t BK also why eat hockey pucks?) and my updated list of where to find the most authentic representations in the city today.
The guide covers everything from the “doneness” rules to some of my favorite restaurant recommendations. For the ultimate Florence restaurant deep dive, join one of my small-group Progressive Dinner Crawls where we tuck into the steak tradition together!
This (Florence’s first & original) evening dining food tour designed by yours truly includes a family-style (feasting) stop of one of the best steaks in town.
NB: If you have an issue with raw meat, I’m not here to judge you and honestly respect appetite diversity but please why come all the way to Italy and attempt to alter centuries-long traditions? Just order something else? I’m a bit soapboxy on this one as red meat waste is one of the most tragic and unfair things that can happen on this planet. Most people who are not into steak cooked to rare end up wasting it. It’s a travesty deserving of a wag of the finger.
Feel free to read on for a little blast from the past before the most recent global inflation, the TikTokification of Firenze and when blogs were Queen…
If Florence had to choose to be renowned for one thing food-wise, it would definitely be this thickly cut, grilled to a bloody char La Bistecca Fiorentina. Mention these 3 words to any Florentine or Florence transplant and assuredly a debate will ensue.
There are many opinions on what is important for a steak, where to get the best steak in Florence and most of all, what breed of cattle la bistecca fiorentina should come from. But restaurants in Florence are evolving to cater to meat connoisseurs, offering more than just a mystery meat variety grilled in the Florentine manner. My biased allegiance would be to the steak stop on my social progressive dinner crawl in Florence. 😉 Continue Reading →
Sant’Ambrogio to me is the city’s culinary landmark. It has the daily food market and some of the best restaurants in the city. Personally, this is where the heart of Florence’s food culture beats and where I learned the bulk of how to cook Tuscan food, gleaning secrets from fellow shoppers and my favored purveyors. In Sant’Ambrogio, you find the institutions boasting Florence’s gastronomic specialties like cafe & bakery Nencioni, the pop & son run street cart of Via de’ Macci who does lampredotto & tripe, a couple wine treasure chests like Sosta de’ Papi and Enoteca Sant’Ambrogio, Gilda’s vintage accoutered sweet & soulful Tuscan restaurant, Marco’s Semel and his signature panini and of course Fabio Picchi’s Cibreo empire.
