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arrangement attracts young artists as
well as eccentric older regulars who look
even more art-damaged than the paint-
ing students. Edith Piaf songs crackle out
of tinny speakers, but the music is barely
audible over all the raucous laughter. As
tipsiness levels increase, orders of coccole
(“cuddles”), a local specialty of fried dough
topped with stracchino (a fresh, creamy
cow’s cheese) and prosciutto, come out.
Inevitably, more rosso materializes.
As I continued to experience Florence,
wandering from monument to museum
to sandwich stand, I found that the most
memorable things I tried were super cheap,
including a stock of wildly underpriced
wines at Pitti Gola e Cantina. A simple
wine bar run by a young team of passionate5
Truffles are an
everyday thing
alba may be better known truffle
territory, but Tuscany’s woods abound
with world-class truffles too. The region’s
soil yields small, intense bianchetto truf-
fles (Tuber borchii) as well as black truffles
that thrive beneath hazelnut trees. So
locally abundant, the funghi are part of
everyday life, folded into everything from
eggs to pasta—and even used as a con-
diment (crema di tartufo) at sandwich
shops and street vendors. In the same way
that America accentuates fast food with
ketchup, Florence does so with truffles.
After stopping into Santa Margherita
dei Cerchi, the church where young Dante
first spotted and fell forever in love with
Beatrice, I headed to a legendary dump
next door called Da’ Vinattieri. Famous
for truffle-and-pecorino coccole (t hose
cuddles again), this window-size slice of a
shop also bakes its own bread and stuffs it
with salty, herbed, luscious porchetta and
a lather of truffle crema. All for four and a
half euros.
At Procacci, a delicatessen that has
been specializing in truffles amid Dior
and Hermes boutiques on ritzy Via Torna-
buoni since 1885, truffle panini go for a
measly two euros. The bun isn’t massive,
but slathered with crema di tartufo, each
bite explodes with deep, truffle-y aromat-
ics and pairs astonishingly well with the
shop’s salty umami bomb of fresh home-
made tomato juice.Above: Coal-fired
tortino di carciofi
(artichoke tart) at
Trattoria Sostanza.
Left: The menu at Da
Nerbone, a stand at
the Mercato Centrale
that specializes in
lampredotto. Op-
posite: Sunset in Flor-
ence’s historic center.near santa maria novella, trattoria
Sostanza is a 19th-century-era Floren-
tine classic. The spare, cramped room and
handwritten menu are indicative of its
familiar clientele who feast on well-loved
dishes like charred bistecca alla fiorentina,
crispy, golden pollo al burro (ch icken w it h6
Florentine classics
always prevail
wine nerds whose cellar is filled with back
vintages of the best wines in Italy, Pitti
Gola offers everything from offbeat Friu-
lian orange wine to bottles of Giacomo
Conterno to dusty releases of Castello di
Monsanto at well below expected prices—
with soulful, rustic cuisine to match.