Charming option in Florence that has multiple areas for different occasions with some good, straighforward options.
As one walks past here you would be forgiven for thinking it is a wine shop with a counter bar to try all the options. It has a very elegant interior and one can either have food at this front bar area, or there is a more formal dining area further through (where a wedding breakfast was taking place when we were there), an outside coffee area with heated lamps or a rustic brasserie area for lunch which we enjoyed.
The food options were decent enough and as was my first time in Italy I obviously wanted to try a pizza (accepting that the very best will probably be in Naples or elsewhere). I’ll get the bad things out of the way first: the opening bread was frankly horrid in being utterly plain and dense at the same time with virtually no redeming features. Not even the olive oil, balsamic or their home made chilli oil could disguise this fact. I’m told this is quite normal for Florence so with a bit more travelling I will be able to make a judgement of this, but the net result is, I did not find this good at all. I also found the lack of any drizzle on the mixed salad a distinct lack of effort. Maybe this was on purpose, but again, the net result was unimaginative and bland.
However, the pizza dough was among the nicest I have had and although there were slightly burnt areas, it was gorgeously rich, chewy and wonderful with tomatoes that had a subtle garlic edge and was the first time I had had a pizza with virtualy no toppings and found this to be absoltely ok! The lamb was delightful and seasoned beautifully and the blue cheese sauce was a fair enough addition. The seafood spaghetti was nicely done and the steak tartare was good (as it always is) but did not rate anywhere near that served at Brasserie Chavot, Berner’s Tavern or especially Chiltern Firehouse as there was just not enough components to make special and the parmesan mousse was more like a thick quinnel of cream that I had to carefully deconstruct to give a fair spread to it all.
All in all this is a lovely option just off the market square by the Church of Santa Croce for dropping in to a place because ‘that looks nice…’. Lovely pizza and ideal for a casual drop in or to have tea outside by the market square.
Food Grade: 62%
My hobby-turned-passion began to evolve during my assignments to London where I was fortunate enough to be able to explore all the Michelin starred restaurants in my spare time and as a result, I gradually built up a catalogue of all these venues.
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