Curious Appetite

Rustic Tuscan Food

5 Best: Where to eat traditional Tuscan in Florence

pappa al pomodoro, take a break from pasta for this

Most people coming to Florence, will be hopefully be looking for “authentic”, non-touristy food. Chances are that if you are looking for “authentic” food, you may not realize that what you should be looking for are: places that do traditional food of their region well. Continue Reading

Restaurants in Florence- top picks of 2015

Polenta and ragu, artichokes and potato puree and ribollita…where’s the pizza and pasta you may ask?

It’s been a gluttonous year in this tiny city- and I’ve only scratched the surface. Florence is a TINY city, but there are nearly 3,000 eateries! I want to stay within normal BMI and cholesterol parameters, here! I’ve done my best to eat at as many places as possible, to meet the chefs, to see what was worth the almighty buck and also what was worth our time. Continue Reading

Trattoria Coco Lezzone (Florence, Italy): Mixed feelings

By a fateful accident of texts exchanged between me and a pal we ended up dining at Coco Lezzone for what should have been a no-nonsense weekday lunch date. I suggested Coco Filippo and said pal replied “oh, you must mean Coco Lezzone!” Since I never heard of this trattoria before, truth be told, I wrote off Filippo and said to Lezzone we go! Continue Reading

In search for the best ribollita in Florence

ribollita in Florence: Tuscan peasant bread, bean and garden vegetable soup

La Ribollita…this dish has been haunting me the last few months as I have been trying in every way to understand it. Before I get too wordy, let me explain what “ribollita” is for those who may not know.

Ri-Bollita literally means -re-boiled. You may see it on an English menu’ boasting “re-boiled bread soup.” It is almost impossible to translate this dish while making it sound appetizing to the foreign masses.

In Tuscany’s “la cucina povera” peasant cuisine, which I adore, is based on not leaving any scrap behind. Tuscan bread is made without salt, for a slew of historical legends (feuds between port towns, high salt taxes, etc) and as a result it goes stale quicker than salted bread. In order to not toss out unused bread, it was then re-purposed to many iconic dishes we eat today such as Panzanella. Continue Reading

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