Advice for Rome, Florence, or Lucca Italy

Any suggestions for eating in Rome, Florence, or Lucca? Leaving next week. Thanks very much.

Only been to Florence out of those (and that over 10 years ago), but I had a very frustrating experience finding good restaurants, believe it or not, and in fact ate at one place so awful that I was waving away other tourists checking out the menu-- at least I might be damned, but they didn't have to be! Weird because that's certainly different from my experience almost anywhere else-- I mean I can't order dry toast in France without having a three-star experience, but Italy was tough for restaurants for me. (I know others have had the exact opposite experience.) So you are wise to get really good recommendations-- some of mine even came from Michelin, but were still just okay.

The one thing I really enjoyed foodwise in Florence was picnicking. We would buy things at the central market in Florence or at the bakeries nearby, wonderful pizzas and meats and cheeses, and then find a nice spot to hang out and chow down. Mind you, that often meant leaving Florence proper-- it's a rather crowded and frantic city, motor scooters everywhere, and just in terms of hanging out we enjoyed Siena (an hour away by train) much more for really giving the feel of a medieval (pre-motor scooter) town. We also took a short bus ride out to a Medici villa called Poggia a Caiano which we had all to ourselves, practically, a great place to picnic (oddly enough, I already mentioned it today if not by name-- it's where I had the stinky cheese mentioned in my Cheese Stands Alone post) and also possessor of a very odd art collection-- one of the last Medicis was an amateur botanist and so the walls are covered with beautifully painted portraits... of his fruits and vegetables.

Anyway, have a great time and if you go to Siena, be sure and buy the postcards of St. Catherine's preserved head. They were big hits when we got home.

Mike G wrote:Weird because that's certainly different from my experience almost anywhere else-- I mean I can't order dry toast in France without having a three-star experience, but Italy was tough for restaurants for me. (I know others have had the exact opposite experience.) So you are wise to get really good recommendations-- some of mine even came from Michelin, but were still just okay.

Well, yea, my experience was the exact opposite. My European visits seem more and more distant these days, but I still remember things. And a few things specifically from Florence. I remember world famous gelato at world famous Viveli, and I even remember the flavor, riso or frozen rice pudding, and I still remember it as the best darn frozen thing I ever ate. I remember wandering off the beaten paths and ending in a neighborhood tratoria where the denizens where sitting around watching a dubbed version of the Godfather (a few years from now when one of the chowhounditas asks me to define irony for them, well I have my example ready). It was not all movies at this place, I remember a great slab of grilled steak. I also remember, but I have no idea where, some outstanding rice based minstrone. Finally, I remember pizza in battered black pans that seemed awfully familar. I got to say, I remember eating alwfully well there.

Rob

PS
Don't forget to visit the Synagogue in Florence OPMark

One could fill a book with recommendations for good eating in Rome, Florence and Lucca, in fact, some one may already have done so. I have to admit, Mike G's experience is a head-scratcher. There is deliciousness around every corner, especially in Rome. In Florence, I suppose it would be easier to eat poorly - the main tourist herding routes are littered with mediocre pizzerie and gelaterie, just like in Venice where you can guess at the quality of the food in a place by its distance from any of the ubiquitous "This Way to Piazza San Marco" signs, but even there, you can eat well with a minimum of effort.

I hope my Dad will chime in with more recommendations, but here are some quickie ideas.

Rome:
San Crispino Gelateria - There are two locations, one is right down the street from the Trevi Fountain. The BEST italian ice cream known to man. I ate a wild-plum gelato that tasted more like plums than any actual plum for sale in 99% of American grocery stores. Pear, cinnamon, rice, ginger: San Crispino has an ever changing selection of ultra fresh flavors,all of which put local efforts at gelato to shame. Much much much better, for example, than the Penguin.

Jewish Bakery in the Ghetto: near the Teatro di Marcello, there is a bakery with 1. incredible chocolate ricotta cake, and 2. the most amazing loaves of deep brown thick crusted, substantial fresh bread you can imagine. Then walk down to the end of the block, and choose one of the three restaurants that specializes in roman-jewish style cuisine - deep fried artichokes and cod, oxtail stew, deep fried zucchini flowers stuffed with fresh mozzarella di bufala and a single glistening anchovy.

I like to walk around Rome and stop at every other Caffe for a tramezzino, the double and triple decker white bread sandwiches, filled with meat or cheese or tuna and a hard boiled egg with Mayo, they always taste much better than they look.

The other pleasure of Roman Caffe culture is unsurprisingly, Italian coffee. We did a little taste test the last time I was there: Tazza D'Oro came out on top in our informal comparison. People talk about San Eustachio as an exemplar of italian coffee, but I found the crema too foamy, almost whipped.

Check out some guide books - I highly recommend the Slow Food Osteria guide, even though it's in Italian only, that fact of a place appearing in it almost guarantees it'll be good. Another good book, written by a friend of my father's who writes about Italian food for the NYT, is Trattorias of Rome Florence and Venice by Maureen Fant.

One could fill a book with recommendations for good eating in Rome, Florence and Lucca, in fact, some one may already have done so

Speaking of which, I found the Michelin Red Book to be a fairly accurate and detailed resource the last time I was in Italy, much more so than, say, a Zagat or Fodor's might be. Certainly more up to date and deeper. Forget about the starred places with huge prices; it's the mom and pops that I found to be spot on several times.

I think Mike must have been in a different Italy;) Seriously, though, you and I have discussed this before. One should be able to fall into a great meal in most parts of Italy. That said, Florence and Rome are extremely touristy, and I have been stuck eating dreadful food in both places myself. My best generic advice would be to run from the tourist spots with the English menus out front and the multi-course specials, toughing it out in well-patronized humble spots in residential neighborhoods.

Why did I eat so badly in Florence? (For dinner, I should again point out. Lunches grabbed at the markets were always good.)

Perhaps my chowdar was not what it is now-- that is almost certainly true-- and yet I did eat very well in Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Salzburg, even in Budapest on the same trip.

I think the most likely explanation is that while in Paris I had already learned how to escape the immediate tourist zone (place Notre Dame behind you. Walk in any direction), and also I spoke some French, I think maybe in Florence I fooled myself a little bit about being out of tourist central when I really wasn't. I think maybe I did the Firenzian equivalent of leaving Old Town for Lincoln Park, and then being surprised that Rudi Fazuli's wasn't the great authentic Italian I'd been expecting to find. (Although heck, Rudi Fazuli's is better than any meal I had.)

In desperation to escape a couple of failures, I resorted to the advice of my Michelin Guide-- and wound up at very dowdy old restaurants which were decent but hardly exciting. It's sort of like if, having been disappointed by Moti Mahal or El Jardin, I went straight to the Cape Cod Room or Fondue Stube. Compare that to France where I had both an Access Guide and Gault Millau (I really miss those no longer being translated).

So what conclusions can you draw? Have good guidebooks and advice. Lose yourself in a real neighborhood, away from anything with a number on your tourist map, and try to eat surrounded by Italians rather than Americans (or Germans; that's who I saw the most of on that trip). That's all I know to suggest.

Seth Zurer wrote:The other pleasure of Roman Caffe culture is unsurprisingly, Italian coffee. We did a little taste test the last time I was there: Tazza D'Oro came out on top in our informal comparison. People talk about San Eustachio as an exemplar of italian coffee, but I found the crema too foamy, almost whipped.

This reminds me of something I've read, and something that bore out when I was in Rome. Go to the same caffe daily. The first morning, you are a tourist. The second, a familiar face. By the third, you're not even needing to tell him how much foam in the cappuchino.

Seth, if I have one disagreement with your post, I remember pretty much all the stuff at Italian bars looking as good as they tasted. But, I wholly endorse the idea of eating early and often in those places.

Rob

OPMark:

Though I certainly hope you have an absolutely fabulous trip, I can't help but say that, despite all the wonderful things Florence has to offer, I pretty much hate that city (well, it's really more love/hate), in large measure on account of the inescapable and massive tourist presence (which is surely worse in summer than any other time of year - I found it overwhelming in early spring) but also for other reasons that can perhaps be just dismissed as personal eccentricities and need not be detailed or elucidated here. On the other hand, I find Siena, which also suffers from massive tourism but to a somewhat lesser degree than Florence, a city with a far more appealing soul. I also had much greater success consistently finding little, unassuming gems of restaurants in Siena than in Florence, where it seems to be almost as easy to eat badly (or at least disappointingly) as it is to eat well. Advice given elsewhere in this spago, though perhaps obvious, must be emphasised: seek out the peripheral and the locally frequented... Unfortunately, in Florence in summer, along with the many thousands of people willing to eat the dull and occasionally even nasty food of the obviously and even less obviously tourist joints, there are also lots and lots of more discriminating people trying to find the same out-of-the-way places that you might be looking for. In this regard, I strongly suspect you'll have an easier time of finding the genuine and the good in Lucca than in Florence or, for that matter, Rome (I've been to Lucca and think had a swell meal there but it was just a day outing from where I was staying up in Pietrasanta and that was some dozen years ago or more). Lucca is really charming.

There are a few minor points I'd like to make. Others have suggested 'picnicking' and that's always a great thing to do in Italy and, for that matter, anywhere in Europe, where interesting local sausages and cheeses and breads abound. In Florence, one runs into the (in my view bizarre) traditional bread without salt, but of course other, more tasty kinds of bread are available in riotous profusion. One 'cold cut' not to miss is finocchiona, a large salami-like sausage flavoured with fennel. Good finocchiona might justfy the whole trip.

For eating out, there are a number of good rosticcerie in Florence, that is, places that specialise in roasted meat, and if you find yourself having to buy a pig in a poke, make it a roasted pig (arista alla Fiorentina) from a rosticceria, which, it seems to me, is more likely to be unpretentiously good than many 'ristoranti', especially those on the main squares and streets with lots of tourist foot-traffic. There are other meaty delights in Florentine cuisine, such as the 'bistecca alla Fiorentina' and the 'cinghiale alla cacciatore' (wild boar, hunter style). If you like bunnies, 'pappardelle alla lepre' is a great, meaty primo, as is the 'penne alla Fiorentina' (tight sauce with a little tomato, ground veal, peas). If you like funky grains, try 'gran farro' or 'minestra di farro'. [Apologies if all this sort of general information is well known to you.]

I have one specific suggestion for a restaurant which I offer with some trepidation, namely:
La Garga, Via del Moro 48 (closed Sunday afternoons and Mondays).
This recommendation comes with a noteworthy caveat: I have been there only once and that was over twenty years ago, when the place was still quite new and my own culinary experience was still fairly limited. The owner and chef was then young and passionately committed to offering his own, innovative take on traditional Tuscan/Florentine dishes - that hardly sounds out of the ordinary these days but in the early '80's in Florence, that was not such a common thing. The place then was tiny (perhaps 6 or 7 tables, as I recall) and my brother and I have always remembered that dinner as one of the outstanding Italian restaurant meals we've had. The exact menu I have recorded in a notebook but I can't locate it at the moment. I do, however, remember that one of the secondi was a boar's cheek dish (guanciale, but not the cured version) and one of the primi was a plate of perfectly simple and perfectly executed ravioli di ricotta dressed in butter and sage. The place appears to be still going strong and the husband/wife team also apparently offers cooking classes. Here's a website, but it's in Italian:

http://firenze.lanetro.it/canales/desar ... sumen=2803

In the write-up there it states that the clientele is largely American and Japanese, but there are obviously tourists, such as yourself, who want to eat well and those who merely must feed, so I don't think that that is necessarily a bad indication. But again, this place is not a homey, traditional, mom-and-pop kind of place but rather the creation of an artistically inclined chef. If you come across or can obtain a review or opinion of La Garga from someone who's been there recently and the review or opinion is strongly positive, then I'd say it's quite likely the place is still very much worth a visit if you're looking for something above the basic trattoria/rosticceria level.

I have blethered too long and must away but will, insha'allah, offer a few comments on Rome in a second installment soon.

Its been almost five years but I treasure fond memories of a meal at Il Latini in Firenze. Communal tables with a big jug of Chianti, and they bring out course after course, melon with prosciuto, pasta, roast veal...it is an awesome atmosphere with excellent food.

We were on our honeymoon and were seated next to another honeymooning couple from Tx. We had a lot of fun while the other guy kept hitting the jug, and hitting the jug and hitting the jug until he started to say and do some truly outrageous things. The best part was when his new bride, worried that she may have gotten more than she bargained for on the altar, looked at him sternly and asked him "who are you??". I'll never forget it!

Enjoy! Mange!

I will reiterate what Seth wrote...the best way to eat well at informal trattoria anywhere in Italy is to get a copy of Osterie d'Italia from Slow Food Editore. I can count on two fingers the number of times I have been disappointed at Slow Food restaurants over the last 11 years. Even though it is in Italian, it fairly easy to decipher and you can cross reference it with English language guide books.

In Lucca, we like Buatino (just outside the walls), Da Francesco and the Vecchia Trattoria Buralli. Try the Tuscan fried chicken at Buralli....a revelation.

In Florence, old standbys are Trattoria Belle Donne and Caffe Italiano. For lunch, the Cantinetta Verrazzano is terrific or the wine bar named Pitti Gola. For a splurge, the main room at Cibreo is terrific.

In Rome, try Alle Colline Emiliane (food from Bologna), La Piazzetta (just off the Via Cavour) or Trattoria Monti (near Santa Maria Maggiore). For a real Roman treat, eat at Il Filletaro di San Barbara--fried codfish and fried vegetables--the Italians really know how to fry.

I could go on and on...but I will say only one more thing. If you find a restaurant you like, go back and--like at the coffee bar--you will be treated very well.

Thanks for all the wonderful responses. Will post on our return.

Any new recommendations for Florence, Venice or Rome? I'm going next week. Thanks.

tcdup wrote:Any new recommendations for Florence, Venice or Rome? I'm going next week. Thanks.

We've been waiting a while for that report back. Patience is a virtue. (See preceeding post.)



A

We had an absolutely fabulous meal at Enoteca, a restaurant and wine bar in the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome. The wine list is truly staggering. But of course, I was pregnant when we were there.

While in Rome, be sure not to miss San Clemente near the Coliesium. It is a true palimpsest. A 12th century church built on top of an 8th century church, built on top of a Roman temple. One of the coolest things we saw.

From a recent e-mail to a friend heading off to Rome:

"Here are 2 good Roman wine bars for inexpensive light meals:

Cul de Sac and Cavour 34.

and for a great midday meal on Sundays, the antipasto at Orso 80 should not be missed. It's about $15-$20 and other than a bottle of wine, you need order nothing else. Orso 80 is close to one of the Tiber Bridges just above the Campo Di Fiore. I don't recall the exact address, but it might be on Via Orso (80?). Not sure.

We haven't been there in a couple of years, but near the Villa Borghese, is one of our favorite restaurants in Rome, called Papa Bacchus. At least when we were last there it was one of the more interesting restaurants in the city. If you want to splurge, however, the place to go is Agata et Romeo. They have a prix fixe dinner that will run you $100/head – it’s just to the east of Santa Maria Maggiore. Be sure to reserve.

Oh yeah, San Crispino's for gelato and Caffe Sant' Eustachio for espresso."

Buon viaggio.

Although this is an old post, people still take trips to Rome / Florence, since they are the more popular Italian excursions. My wife and I visited Rome, Florence, and Positano in May of 2006 for our honeymoon. Some friends have visited Italy since and I only have one recommendation that stood out in my mind.

I would have to agree with MikeG. on some of his views. I thought the food was either awful or pretty good with really nothing much blowing me away except for some gelato, small lunches, cheese, wine, and of course the best steak I've had in my life. Most of the dinner restaurants were ok but overall we were disappointed. I guess you would have to go pretty high end to get a great dining experience there (as opposed to the $150-$200USD we were shelling out). On two occasions in ten days, I didn't finish my meal, it was so bad. As opposed to Paris (like Mike said) where everything seems to be done extremely well.

I would say that the best steak I've ever had in my life was in Florence at Trattoria Sostanza-Troia (Via del Porcellana 25 red, tel. 055-212-691). It's famous for it's beef and is a small place with very few tourists. The tables are shared which gives you that "insider" feel. It's a casual place but the food is simple and the steak is amazing. We were able to get reservations the same day for a 9pm seating. If you go, look it up - it's worth the trip alone. I wanted to go back the next day and still crave it!

My Italy notes are at home (a thousand miles away), but Florence is a finnicky city. I have a few Italian-language food guides from Gambero Rosso and some other publishers that are worth their weight in gold; however, even then you can get a dud in Firenze. For haute Italian, expect €125-€250 per person for an exceptional meal.

My motto - see the sights in Firenze, watch out for the gypsies, and save the big meal budget for Parma, Siena, or Bologna. We're going back to Levanto this spring and fish on the Riviera is not to be missed.

Cheers,

-Andrew

Hi,

I can't comment too much on Rome or Lucca, though I've been to both and found the food more interesting in Lucca overall. However, I can suggest a couple of things about Florence.

First, this is a remarkably touristy restaurant, but it's still quite good and fun for its "sampler" plates of primi (pastas) and dolci (desserts): Aqua al Due, located between the Duomo and Bargello on the tiny street, Via della Vigna Vecchia.

Next, I strongly recommend going to the Oltrarno (the other side of the Arno from the Duomo) where it's a bit less touristy. I found one truly fantastic restaurant in a basement on one of the main drags that ran along the Arno on that side (on the way to Santo Spirito), but am sorry to say I can't remember the name of it.

By the way, two things to eat while you're in Florence: pecorino cheese with truffled honey for an appetizer and ribollita (a Tuscan bread stew) for a primo. One thing to not get your hopes up about: the bread.

Have fun! I envy you!
B

artichoke wrote:One thing to not get your hopes up about: the bread.

Yeah, Tuscan bakers still haven't figured out that whole salt thing, for some reason

I was talking with Seth Zurer about why I had bad luck (again, except for the market and bakeries) in Florence and he had a golden touch. One thing we decided was that I had basically done the equivalent of never leaving the immediate vicinity of Notre Dame in Paris, or Times Square in New York; with both our hotel and most of the points of interest close to the center of town, I'd never really ventured beyond Tourist Central (except when we went to Poggia a Caiano). So I don't know anything to suggest about what's beyond the center, but I'd sure put some effort into hunting through it for food, and not eating all your meals within a short walk of the Duomo and the Uffizi.

Tuscan bakers still haven't figured out that whole salt thing, for some reason

Actually, they seem to take pride in it. I don't know if anyone knows for sure why it started-- some say a rise in the salt tax way back when, others a way of snubbing one's nose at the Pope -- but it goes back a long way. Even Dante mentions it:

"Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com'e duro calle L o scendere e il salir per l'altrui scale." (''You shall learn how salt is the taste of another's bread, and how hard a path the descending and climbing another's stairs.")

. . . and if it's in Dante, don't expect things to change soon. Sometimes "tradition" ain't the best of all possible worlds.

I just returned from Rome and Florence, 7 pounds heavier. I had friends in Rome and ate at some local places outside the city with them, so I have no recommendations.

In Florence, I second the choice of Aqua Al 2. The best way to order is the sampler of Antipasto, Pasta, Primi, and Dessert. Only share 1 of each as the portions are large. We enjoyed all the food served.
Other restaurants I recommend are Il Giostra where we had terrific pasta and grilled fish, and Osteria di Benci, which had an unbelievable pasta with ricotta. Antico Noe is a tiny 6 table restaurant serving only fresh market ingredients of the day, which are in crates at the entrance to the restaurant. We had grilled artichokes, pasta with porcinis, and bisteca.
For lunch, Caruso had great pizza, and Mario had a wonderful tagliatelle with boar.

I don't know who started the "food in Italy is overrated messages" but just from the top of my head I can think of 3 amazing restaurants in Florence that blew my mind.

La Giostra
Il Latini
Aqua al Due

2Utah2 wrote:I don't know who started the "food in Italy is overrated messages" but just from the top of my head I can think of 3 amazing restaurants in Florence that blew my mind.

La Giostra
Il Latini
Aqua al Due

Not sure that this thread qualifies as a "food in Italy is overrated messages" rant but more of a general observation on the restaurant options in Rome and Florence - heavily tourist areas. I believe from the posts, most people had good dining experiences and a couple of us were less than impressed, whether it had to do with location or luck of the draw. In my own experiences, I have heard how the food in Italy "was amazing" and everything you eat there is "just incredible" from friends of mine. I had high expectations and maybe romanticized the food experience in my head before I arrived there. I have no doubt that there are amazing restaurants all over Italy and the food quality is very high in many instances. During my trip, I found that the food was so-so, most of the time and to have a good meal meant spending much more than you would in a city like Chicago (or do some research on specific places to go). I was in central Rome and Florence so many of the places weren't fine dining. The thing is, I'm guessing this is 90% of the American traveler experience. We didn't have too many opportunities to go off the beaten path and explore small places. That's what this forum is about. If you stay in central Rome or Florence, be prepared that the food quality v. value may not be what you expect. Get recommendations and do your research. At the end of the trip, my wife and I remarked about how we are fortunate to live in a city where you can get a good meal for an affordable price. We have a lot of restaurants in Chgo that have higher than average quality food and lower than average prices (compared to NYC, for example). The next time I go to Rome or Florence, I'll know that I can't just walk into any place and get a decent meal and I'll do some research before I go. I will; however, make it a point to get that steak in Florence though....

If you stay in central Rome or Florence, be prepared that the food quality v. value may not be what you expect. Get recommendations and do your research.

I think this is true of any large city which draws a bundle of tourists. I've had some of the best pizza I've ever had in Italy and some of the worst (in Rome near the Colosseum), some of the best steak frites I've ever had in Paris and some of the worst.

I still recall a restaurant experience of many years ago in Florence. We walked into a well-researched restaurant, red Michelin guide in sight, and we were seated in a room with mostly French tourists (where the waiter spoke to us in French), and were rewarded with a memorabily wonderful meal. We returned there our final night in Florence (sans Michelin Guide), were seated in a room full of English tourists (where the waiter spoke only English) and were served a memorably execrable meal. (As my wife commented, I don't care if we're surrounded by Brits, I've had better pasta in the East End!) Yes, it's possible to get mediocre food in the best of foodie destinations and even despite your best efforts. Ergo, the value of LTH and other resources for the concerned and discriminating, fallible as they may be.

If people want top-notch food in Italy you must go to a "ristorante", not a taverna, trattoria, etc. (which can be hit/miss) and people need to MAKE EFFORT to find these white table cloth "ristorantes" and eat after 8 p.m. Almost every single establishment in Italy that calls itself a "ristorante" will be good. What happens is American tourists get tired early and eat early, and then often in some random place. If you study the guide books, eat at ristorantes, and eat later in the evening.....that's where you will find the good food. Ristorantes are usually discreet and eat-inside restaurants, not the sidewalk type places that usually trap the tourists at dusk.

This restaurant in Rome is well-known and off the tourist track:

http://www.ambasciatadiabruzzo.com/ingl ... p?cmd=home

Worth checking out, and located in Parioli which is the business and goverment district of Rome, near the embassies. The food is from the Abruzzo region, but this place is the real deal.

Also this place was very memorable, the real Roman deal, and the food incredible:

http://www.lavillettadal1940.com/

Trattorie : La Villetta Dal 1940
Indirizzo : 53, Vl. Della Piramide Cestia
Cap : 00153
Telefono : 06 57287585, 06 5750597
Fax : 06 5750597

"Another fun spot is La Villetta, just outside Testaccio proper and favoured by the players of the AS Roma soccer team and their well-coiffed girlfriends. The place is big, brash and loud, the food better than decent. Go late – 10 p.m. is when the place fills up (in Italy, only families with young children eat dinner before 9)."

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PS I can second the "I Latini" recommendation from a post above. That place is great fun in Florence.