Everything below is somewhere I've actually been, or somewhere I'd send you without hesitating. It skews Oltrarno, trattoria and fish, because that's how I eat. Nothing here is on a tourist trail, except where I say so.
Ilya · Updated August 2026
My Florence shortlist
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Start here
Read this bit on the plane. Everything after it is a list.
First, the food
You are in a country that took its name from the word eat — yes, spell-checking was unreliable in those days. Florence is about food to a degree that catches people out, and coming here without choosing where you eat is like spending a week in the Maldives and never once getting into the sea.
Fair warning: the cooking is unapologetically meat-heavy. As the Florentines say, if you want good fish, go to Arezzo — which is forty minutes further inland, and that is the whole joke. I have put a few genuinely fish-friendly places on the list anyway.
Breakfast, or the local absence of it
Italians treat breakfast as a component of intermittent fasting. A coffee taken standing at the bar and, as the joke goes, if they are really hungry, a cigarette.
If you want an actual breakfast, have it at your hotel — or go to Ditta Artigianale Riva d'Arno on the Lungarno. That is the branch to go to; the others are good, but this is the one to sit in.
When it is too hot to think
Florence is scorching from the middle of June to the middle of September. The city sits in a bowl and holds heat like a pan.
For lunch outdoors in something more humane, go up to Villa San Michele in Fiesole and eat on the terrace of the main restaurant, in the old loggia. Or, if you want the holiday version, eat by the pool — there is a grill out there, and it feels like a proper afternoon off.
One note: the villa reopened in April 2026 after a long renovation and the loggia room has been renamed Antesi. Current listings show it as dinner only, so ring ahead if lunch up there is the plan.
Dinner, when you want to show off
Atelier de' Nerli — created by a friend of mine, who sourced very nearly everything you can see in the room from the artisans of the Oltrarno. Which is itself worth an afternoon of aimless wandering: it is the workshop quarter, and it is still working.
Hostaria da Fulvio — brilliant and completely understated, an osteria and bar built by a group of young food fanatics. If you are too tired to go elsewhere for an aperitivo, have it in their bar. And if you want the young crowd, stay for a drink after dinner rather than moving on.
Aperitivo
The best is Procacci on Via Tornabuoni, whenever the weather is bearable enough to sit outside. Truffle rolls since 1885, and they still get them right.
Too cold or too hot for the street, go to Chic Nonna — signed these days as Eye Cocktail Bar, inside Palazzo Portinari Salviati.
For something informal, among actual locals rather than an audience: Il Santo Bevitore — and specifically its little bar Il Santino two doors down, which is where the standing-and-drinking happens.
And if you simply want a drink and the feel of the place, sit out in Piazza Santo Spirito in the evening. That square is the local vibe, unfiltered.
If you are hungry at an awkward hour
Between roughly 15:00 and 19:30 most serious kitchens in Florence are simply shut. Osteria delle Tre Panche is one of the very few that runs right through it, and you do not need to book. Worth knowing on the day your plans slip.
Where the tourists somehow aren't
Trattoria Nerone sits on Via Faenza, which is about as touristed as a Florentine street gets — and yet somebody in there deserves a prize for curating the clientele. It feels considerably more Florence, Italy than Florence, Alabama. Since 1943, and the kitchen also runs straight through the afternoon.
The museum hack
Buy the annual card to the Uffizi. €80 for one person, or €120 for the family card covering two adults and their children. It covers the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens for a year.
Ignore the fact that you are almost certainly wasting eleven months of it. What you are buying is this: priority entry, no ticket queue, and no need to book at all. You turn up whenever you feel like it. Which means that when it starts raining, or the heat becomes absurd, you have an extremely elegant escape available at ten minutes' notice — three of them, in fact, because Pitti and Boboli are on the same card. uffizi.it
The card does not officially cover the security check — but in my repeated experience the staff are helpful about it and you are walked straight through without queueing.
Sunset, two ways
The quiet one.Ponte Santa Trinita — buy a bottle of wine and sit up on the parapet facing the falling sun, with Ponte Vecchio to your left. The bridge is effectively a long stone bench pointed straight at the sunset, and Florentines have been treating it as one for years. Nobody will bother you.
The comfortable, touristy one. Not the terrace at the top of Piazzale Michelangelo — that is the crush — but the grass slope and terraced steps just below it, where everyone spreads out on the bank facing the city and waits. It is a genuinely lovely way to do it. You simply won't be doing it alone.
Eat
Florence eats late. Kitchens open around 19:30 and locals turn up after 20:00 — if a place seats you at 18:45 without a booking, that tells you who eats there. Book anything marked below; the good rooms are small.
My regulars
Hostaria da Fulvio€€
Santo Spirito
Brilliant and completely understated — an osteria and bar built by a group of young food fanatics. Small frescoed room, Tuscan with a serious fish side; the mussels in Roquefort are what people come back for. Have the aperitivo in their bar, and stay for a drink after dinner if you want the young crowd.
Family-run since 1945, a minute from Ponte Vecchio and nothing whatsoever like the places around it. Handmade pasta, truffle in season. Closed Tuesdays and Wed/Thu lunch.
Florence's oldest restaurant, 1880, in the cellars beneath Palazzo Antinori. The cooking is on the heavy side — but the quality is high, and it is more than made up for by exceptional service and real warmth from the owner. Charcoal bistecca, wild boar with polenta.
The most orthodox Japanese room in the city — Japanese-run, tiny, a proper sake list. Awkward hours: closed Tuesdays and Thursdays, weekends lunch only.
Truffle is the house obsession — black or white by season, over tagliolini or beef. Its real value here: one of the very few kitchens that genuinely keeps going through the afternoon, when everywhere serious is shut. No need to book. Two sites — the original out at Via Pacinotti and a rooftop at the Hotel Hermitage.
Somebody there deserves a prize for curating the clientele. Via Faenza is one of the most heavily touristed streets in the city, and yet the room feels far more Florence, Italy than Florence, Alabama — which, for the record, is the largest of the American Florences, and is not represented here. Trading since 1943: fresh pasta made daily, wood-fired pizza, bistecca. Open straight through, 11:30 to 23:30.
Big informal room, serious wine list, named after the Joseph Roth novella. Two doors down at number 60 is Il Santino, its pocket-sized bar — four tables, salumi hanging behind the counter — and that is where you go for an aperitivo among locals rather than an audience.
Created by a friend of mine, who sourced very nearly everything in the room from the artisans of the Oltrarno — Antico Setificio silk, Romanelli bronze, Locchi engraved glass, L'Ippogrifo carving. Seasonal Tuscan cooking inside what is effectively a working showcase of the quarter. Dinner; book.
A 15th-century convent above the city, its façade attributed to Michelangelo. Lunch on the loggia terrace of the main room, or by the pool at the San Michele Grill if you want the holiday version. The villa reopened in April 2026 and the loggia restaurant is now called Antesi — current listings show dinner only, Tue–Sun, tasting menus from €160, so ring ahead for lunch.
One of the very few places in Florence where your coffee arrives in a Ginori cup. The whole room is built out of Florentine craft — Locchi crystal on the table, Ginori porcelain, the staff dressed by Florentine tailors — and the kitchen cooks Tuscan from artisan producers. Imitation being the highest form of flattery, it is worth remembering that Ginori have been painting these patterns since 1735, a full century before Hermès opened its doors. Hold an Hermès cup up beside one and form your own view.
Matteo Fantini's small room, brick and beams, well off the tourist grid. No classic dishes on principle — the tasting menu is the way in. The cooking draws on Japanese fusion, and the wine list leans French, which is not what you expect three streets from a bistecca house.
Three Michelin stars, the only one in Florence, in a 17th-century palazzo with a cellar of 70,000 bottles. The single exception to my preference for trattorie. Dinner only, Tue–Sat.
One Michelin star, in the palazzo where Dante's Beatrice was born. Conventional starred dining done properly rather than experimentally — go when that is precisely the mood you're in. You may have heard of it as Chic Nonna; it was renamed in 2025.
Pizza and fish under one roof, which sounds wrong and isn't. Widely called the best pizza in Florence. Booking essential; residential street, no tourists.
Aperitivo starts around 18:30 and it will delay your dinner, which is the point of it.
Procacci€€€
Centro · Via de' Tornabuoni
Open since 1885 and owned by the Antinori family. The panini tartufati — small truffle-butter rolls — with a glass of their wine, at the tables out on Tornabuoni. This is the one, whenever the weather lets you sit outside.
Where to go when the aperitivo should feel like an occasion, or the street is too hot or too cold to stand in. Fourteen seats at the counter, a serious champagne list, snacks from the starred kitchen next door. Daily 17:00 to midnight. You may know it as Chic Nonna. Less formally, Salotto Portinari downstairs does aperitivo all day in the Court of Cosimo I.
A dozen seats, mostly standing, small Tuscan producers and a plate of salumi. The bar belonging to Il Santo Bevitore, and the informal aperitivo of choice. Go early or expect the pavement, which is fine.
Frescoed rooms, stone staircases and a courtyard inside Palazzo Concini. Number 21 in Europe's 50 Best Bars this year. Book at weekends — the courtyard is what you want.
Breakfast in Italy is coffee and a pastry standing at the bar, and there is no savoury option. Don't fight it.
Ditta Artigianale — Riva d'Arno€
San Frediano · Lungarno Soderini
If you want a real breakfast rather than the local fasting ritual, this is where to have it. Florence's original third-wave roaster, founded by a three-time Italian barista champion — six sites now, but the Riva d'Arno one on the river is the one to sit in.
The world's first Café Ginori, and the other place in town where the cup is as good as what's in it — everything served on Ginori porcelain. Same note as at The Place: Ginori have been drawing these since 1735, which is a century before Hermès existed, and imitation is famously the highest form of flattery. Absurd and rather lovely. 11 till 7.
Three things need booking and one of them needs booking a month out. The rest you can improvise — and if you took my advice on the annual card, all of it.
Uffizi — and what to actually look for
Do not try to see all of it. Go for five things and leave: Leonardo's Annunciation (room A35), Giotto's Ognissanti Maestà (A4), Michelangelo's Doni Tondo (A38), Caravaggio's Medusa, and Piero della Francesca's double portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (A9).
€25 on the day, €29 booked ahead. There is a new €16 afternoon ticket for entry after 16:00, which buys a much emptier gallery — though if you bought the annual card, ignore all of this and walk in. Closed Mondays.
Accademia — the David, and really only the David
€16, booking essential all year. Be clear about what it is: one extraordinary statue and a decent side collection. Half an hour of queueing is fine; two hours is not.
Bargello — the one nobody books
€12, walk in. Go for the three that matter: Donatello's bronze David and Verrocchio's David, both in the Salone di Donatello which reopened in 2025 after a year of restoration — and Michelangelo's Bacchus on the ground floor.
Almost nobody is there. Best value in Florence and my standing recommendation for a hot afternoon. One caution: the entrance and the Michelangelo room are inside a 2026 refurbishment programme with no published dates — worth a phone call if that is the reason you're going.
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo — better than the queue outside
The one museum most people walk straight past. Inside are the original Baptistery doors — Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise and north doors, and Pisano's south doors. What is on the Baptistery itself is a copy. Also here: Michelangelo's Pietà Bandini, the one he worked on into his eighties and then attacked with a hammer.
No standalone ticket — the cheapest way in is the Ghiberti Pass, €15. Daily 08:30–19:00, closed the first Tuesday of the month.
Brunelleschi's dome — book this first, or not at all
Sold only as a pass: the Brunelleschi Pass, €30. The pass lasts three days but your dome slot is a fixed date and time, non-changeable and non-refundable.
In high season book a month ahead. 463 steps, no lift, narrow spirals. Tickets are nominative — bring ID. The cathedral nave itself is free.
Antico Setificio Fiorentino
A silk mill in San Frediano, still weaving on eighteenth-century looms — including a warping machine built to a design by Leonardo. It supplies fabric to palaces and film sets, and is now part of the Stefano Ricci group.
By appointment only, and worth the effort. A 45-minute guided tour on weekday mornings or afternoons, or a four-hour 'weaver for a day' if you are serious. Via Lorenzo Bartolini 4 — info@setificiofiorentino.it or +39 055 213861. Prices on request.
Museo Novecento — check before you go
Worth knowing if you had this down for the Henry Moore shows: those ran between 2021 and 2023 and have all closed. Currently on is Georg Baselitz, Avanti!, until 13 September 2026.
The bigger catch: the permanent collection is not in Florence at the moment — it is on loan to Castelfiorentino until 20 September 2026. So you get the Baselitz and not much else. €13, Piazza Santa Maria Novella, closed Thursdays.
Piazzale Michelangelo
For sunset, see the Tips page — the slope below the piazzale is the good way to do it. The terrace at the top, at eight in the evening in August, is several hundred people and a man selling light-up toys.
At any other hour, keep climbing five minutes to San Miniato al Monte: a finer church, the same view, a fraction of the people, and Gregorian vespers in the late afternoon.
Beyond Florence
The city is small and you'll have seen it. This is the better half of the trip — and where I actually spend my time.
Fiesole — 20 minutes, and the best value in Tuscany
Bus 7 from Piazza San Marco, on a city ticket. Etruscan walls, a Roman theatre, and the definitive view back over Florence. Perfect late afternoon — and where Villa San Michele is.
Siena — take the bus, not the train
Bus 131R from the station forecourt, about 1h15, roughly twice an hour, and it drops you at Piazza Gramsci, a short walk from the Campo. The train looks tidier on paper and then leaves you two kilometres downhill from the town. Don't.
Eat at Casa Tua — I'd book. Pizza at Pomodorino in the centre. Park at Siena Stadio if you drive.
Chianti — this is why you'd hire a car
The SR222 Chiantigiana, and the reason to have a car for a day. Nothing worth seeing in Chianti is reachable on public transport — the bus gets you to Greve and then abandons you.
Where I eat out there: La Cantinetta di Rignana, Osteria di Brollio, Taverna de Vagliagli, Pian del Grillo, and Portanova Hosteria Enoteca at Colle di Val d'Elsa. Il Mestolo if you want fish inland.
One warning: drink-driving limits are lower than the UK's and enforced. If it's a proper tasting day, get a driver.
Lucca — the most relaxing day out
Direct train, about 1h20, roughly hourly. Entirely walled, entirely flat, and the station sits at the foot of the wall so you walk straight in. Hire bicycles and ride the ramparts.
Pisa — half a day, not a day
Under an hour by direct train. The Campo dei Miracoli genuinely is remarkable and takes two hours. The rest of Pisa does not repay a full day. Pair it with Lucca.
Arezzo — the one nobody goes to
40 minutes on a fast train. Go for Piero della Francesca's Legend of the True Cross: €9, booking mandatory, thirty people per 30-minute slot, and the chapel shuts 10:30–11:00 for services. Shoulders and knees covered. Eat at Le Chiavi d'Oro or Osteria Grande. And — per the joke on the Tips page — allegedly where the good fish is.
San Gimignano — go late
An hour and a half with a change, or an hour by car. Worth it only if you stay past five, when the coaches leave and it becomes a town again. Gelato at Dondoli.
Practical
The dull but expensive bits.
The ZTL — the expensive mistake
The centre is a camera-enforced restricted zone: Mon–Fri 07:30–20:00, Sat 07:30–16:00, free on Sundays. Plus a summer night zone, Thu/Fri/Sat 23:00–03:00 until 4 October.
There is no grace period. A thirty-second drop-off is a full fine, and every gate you cross is a separate one — one wrong turn routinely produces three or four. They reach you through the hire company months later, around €80–100 each plus the rental firm's admin fee on top.
Simply don't drive into Florence. Park outside — the Villa Costanza park-and-ride onto the tram is the easy answer — and pick a car up only on the day you head for Chianti. If a hotel is inside the zone, give them your plate before you arrive.
The bill
Coperto is a per-head cover charge, usually €1.50–5, and it's legal as long as it's printed on the menu. Bread may be billed separately. Tipping is genuinely not expected — staff are salaried. Round up, or leave €2–5 for two at dinner if you thought it was good. Leaving nothing is not rude; leaving 20% marks you out.
Times
Lunch 12:30–15:00, and Italians sit down at 13:00. Dinner from 19:30, locals after 20:00. Between 15:00 and 19:30 most real restaurants are shut — bars and gelaterie cover the gap, and see Tre Panche on the Eat page.
What to skip
Said plainly, because nobody else will.
Anywhere you can eat within sight of the Duomo or Ponte Vecchio
Reliably poor and reliably expensive. The rule is simple: walk five minutes out of the sightline of the monument. Cross the river.
The San Lorenzo leather stalls
Largely not Italian and not good. If you want leather, go to the Scuola del Cuoio inside the Santa Croce complex, or an actual Oltrarno workshop.
The upstairs at Mercato Centrale
A food court at tourist prices with never enough seats. The ground-floor market is the real thing — Nerbone for a lampredotto panino, which is the Florentine sandwich you should actually eat.
Gelato piled in tall coloured mountains
Pumped with air and stabilisers. Look for flat trays or covered metal tubs, muted colours, few flavours. Banana should be grey-white, pistachio dull brown-green.
The queue at All'Antico Vinaio
The sandwiches are good. Ninety minutes of your holiday is not what they're worth, and the queue has become the attraction. Any decent schiacciata counter does the same job.