Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Taste Florence: Where to Find the Best Food in the Heart of Tuscany

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

Toni Mazzaglia is an American expat who moved to Florence years ago. After seeing too many visitors fall prey to tourist traps, she started the food tour company Taste Florence to help us discover the city’s very best food, from fresh pasta to pecorino to wine…It’s seriously one of the best food tours I’ve ever been on. Traveling to Florence? You should really experience this for yourself, and Postcard Academy listeners can get 5% off with the code POSTCARD18. Visit postcardacademy.co for photos and more.   Thank you for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcardDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy, your somewhat weekly travel and culture podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel. If you're a regular listener of this show, you know that I spend a significant amount of time in Italy, mostly Rome, one of the most gorgeous places on Earth. I also love Reggio Emilia, which is like a second home to me. It's where I became an Italian citizen, and I have great friends up there. So, hello, Annalisa and Christina, and Elena, and other Elena. Then there's Turin and Naples. just so many places that I adore, but I confess that historically Florence has not been one of them. The small streets in the city center are absolutely bursting with tourists, and whenever I'm there, I feel like I'm in little America. That is, until today's guest showed me the light. Tony Motsalia is an American expat who moved to Florence years ago. After seeing too many visitors while prey to tourist traps, she started the food tour company Taste Florence to help us discover the city's

very best food. From fresh pasta to pecorino to wine, it is seriously one of the best food tours I've ever been on. You should really experience this for yourself, and I will include a discount for taste florence at the end of the show. You can also visit postcardacademy.co for photos and links to what we talk about today. Two quick things before we dive into all things Florence and Italian food. Voting is open for the annual podcast awards. The Postcard Academy is nominated in the society and people's choice categories. It would mean the world to me if you would go to podcastawards.com and vote for Postcard Academy. Again, you'll find this podcast under the Society and People's Choice Categories, and I will include a link for this in the show notes.

Thank you so much. One more thing, this podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet. Postcard Academy listeners can get a free audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up using the link audible trial.com slash postcard. Welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. So you are an American. So what brought you to Florence? I came here. Well, I came to Italy in 1997, but I didn't go to Florence that year. Even though I was really nearby, I was in Luca, which is only like 45 minutes an hour at most, depending on the transport.

And I went to Luca because I heard no one spoke English there. And I didn't come to Florence because I heard everyone spoke English year. And I didn't want to get stuck in that loop. I wanted to learn Italian. So fast forward from 1997, I go to Luca. I fall in love with the culture, the food. I find family in Sicily. And I'm like, okay, I was supposed to go study in Spain.

And I love Spain, but I feel more at home in Italy. I'm going to do this in Italy. So canceled my study abroad in Italy. sorry, in Spain. And now fast forward to 2002 and doing my study abroad in Florence, which was just an excuse to be here. It was like my second to last semester. And I lived in the San Lorenzo neighborhood and just totally loved it. I lived right across the street from the market. I lived over two amazing bakeries. And I can't remember the original question, but I came here as an went to study, but that was an excuse. And I stayed for the food and wine.

An excellent reason to stay. And I love that you went to Luca because you knew that you were going to be forced to speak Italian. I did the same in Reggio, Emilia. And I always had people coming up to me saying, like, what are you doing here? Why did you leave New York to come to this place? And I'd be like, but this place is so great. Yeah, they said that to me too. And there are times that I kind of get what they mean. But I think they base that opinion. I mean, you meet the occasion. Italian that actually lived in the States, but usually it's people, how many times have you been given questions about Baywatch, especially when we first got here, like now not so much, but 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if I, like, every person I met asked me about Baywatch and if I knew Pamel Anderson, I mean, not every person, they're not dumb, but like, mostly the men here would be like, oh, Pamela Anderson, Baywatch. And I think they all have this opinion of America based on, you know, what they see on TV. So they see these beautiful beaches, and beautiful people and huge houses with big roads and lots of trees and and they are things

that we have in the States, but not to the extent that I think they think we have them. Yeah, I think the stereotypes go two ways. Either watch and everything is great or everybody is super fat and on the culture. Shooting in movie theaters, which unfortunately is sometimes true. But yeah, yeah. So after you studied in Florence, I think you went home for a little while, but then you decided to come back and then were you doing studying gastronomy and wine? When I was here for that study abroad, which I repeat was just an excuse to be here, the classes were actually way more amazing than I had anticipated. And it was actually a pretty difficult semester, even though it was awesome.

I did take one gastronomy class. It was about the foods of different regions of Italy, and it was basically like half sociology, half cooking class. So we got into all the different regional foods. They talked about food festivals, the Sagra, which I love to go to. We just learned about how there's so many differences in Italian culture and cuisine and how it can change even from, you know, a distance of 20 kilometers. The plates, the dialect, all kinds of things can change. Yeah, and the sagra you mentioned, those are little. local festivals that happen all over Italy at different times of the year.

Yeah, I love these few festivals. They usually are on from like early spring till late fall. And you could get anything from strawberry or cherry festivals. Like the cherry festival in Lardy is my favorite. They make these little fried cherry fritters that are amazing. It's like imagine if you took a blueberry muffin, but instead it's a strawberry, I mean, not strawberry, a cherry fritter and it's fried and rolled around in sugar. And it's like four or five of the grandmas from the town make them.

And there's a huge line. You have to get a number. So I have a system. I get there really early. I get my number. Where is it? This is Larry L-A-R-I. It's part of Pisa.

Okay. And it's a fortified town. Or actually it has like the castle in the middle. I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to phrase it. But it's where Martelli pasta comes from. So, like, if you go to Williams and Sonoma or any gourmet shops, they have these packages of yellow, it's like a yellow paper package, and it says Martelli. That comes from this little town. So it's like a really high-end, high-quality pasta.

So they do this. It's like usually the last weekend of May and the first weekend of June. And they have the food stand. Like, all of these places usually have, like, two or three appetizers, three or four, you know, pasta soup or result of dishes. And then like five or six meat dishes. And usually there's only like sliced up tomatoes and beans or salad. There's not a lot of veggies in these places. And you go and you stand in line and you fill out the form.

And sometimes they're well organized and streamlined. And sometimes they're not, but it's part of the package. And you're not going for ambience because it's not fancy. It's like picnic tables, if you're lucky, with really bad neon lighting. And sometimes you're out in the open and sometimes you're under a tent. So the one in Lardi that the cherry part is actually like in town and there's all these different stands that have fresh cherries. We can try their fresh cherries and buy their fresh cherries. And then there's like somebody that makes cherry liquor and somebody that makes the cherry fritters and the cherry pie and cherry marmalade, cherry everything.

And because it's like in season. So there's tons of cherries. And then there's the tent kind of off to the side of town. And that has kind of just your usual suspects that you have like couple pasta dishes and they have ribs. pork ribs. Here we just have the ribs. They're just grilled and you throw some salt on then. There's no rubbing or sauces or anything, but they're really good. So I usually get here where I get to Lari, I get my little ticket from the ladies that make the fritters because they don't make the fritters until after the meal's over. And I get my number, so I usually get like into the first

50. And then I go eat at the tent and then I come back. And by that time, they just started prying the fritters and I get my fritters. Very strategic. Happy? Yeah. I've brought many, many friends to this festival. And I have a really good friend. A little shout out to Nancy. She's an architect. And she's from Savannah, Georgia. She lives over here. And she is my number one sagra or sagra partner. And I used to go a lot with my old roommate, Emmanuelale, but he moved to the States actually years ago. So there was one time that Emmanuel and I went to four Sagre in one day. It was hardcore. Oh, I want to join the Sagra Club. Oh, you're welcome to.

Okay. During the seasons. Yeah. And now that, like, I've gotten to know you, like, I really wish I had more time when you were here. But, like, when you, you're welcome to come stay with me as long as I have a room, you're not allergic to dogs, right? I love pets.

Oh, thanks. Oh, my God. Thanks, Tony. Well, I say to everyone on this podcast, be careful what you say. Because I'm the type of person who will actually take you up on it. Oh, and I don't say that. I don't give that offer to that many people. Don't worry.

Okay. I know that you will you'll show up, you know what I mean? Like, I know that you really do travel a lot, but I wouldn't give me the offer, like an empty offer. Well, thank you. Well, whenever I have a home again, you are, the offer is definitely reciprocal.

Thank you. So, okay, you clearly love Italian food. And in fact, so much that you started your own food tour company in Florence. When did that get started? So I started Taste Florence. Let's say kind of late in the game of 2007, kind of on the cusp of 2007-2008. The first tour went out on March 6th of 2007,

which is Michelangelo's birthday. I absolutely adored your tour. And when we were walking around to all the locally owned places, everyone was saying hello to you. You seemed to like Florence's American sweetheart. It was so fun. Thank you. And you see how you were engaging with everybody.

But it's not easy starting a business in Italy. So what inspired you to go for it? I'm actually, so I studied two things. I did study Italian language and culture. And then since it took me so long to get my bachelor's degree, I did a double major to something my parents send me proud. And I also got, so I have a communications major as well, or I guess I should say a degree at this point. And I was, I was aiming for photography, filmmaking, and I had some things lined up. And actually my early 20s was working as a photographer in Wilmington, North Carolina, living like a totally different life. Hold on.

Uh-huh. I'm not to interrupt, but I feel like we're living like parallel lives here because I also had to double major to please my parents. I was really going to be English, just English literature. And I just wanted to like expand my mind. My parents are like, no colleges to get a job. So I also double majored in journalism, which I'm so glad I did. But then I went to Wilmington, North Carolina. Carolina right after and worked at the newspaper there. I can't believe what? Yes. How did we what?

Yeah. Wait, which one? I was at the Wilmington Morning Star. I worked for encore. Okay. I was that weekly entertainment magazine there and I did food photography, restaurant photography. I remember. It's all coming back to me. That's so weird. So long ago. I was working in the like in the film world. I was doing still photography. I was doing still photography head shots. So I was hanging out with a lot of the creative crowd. And then on top of that, I was working at Encore, doing the food and restaurant stuff. And then I got a sweet job working for CitySearch back when, you know, Yelp didn't exist, TripAdvisor didn't exist.

And so, like, City Search was like the original thing. And they would send me to take pictures of food. And then I got to eat the food. It was awesome. And it was a dream job. It was my dream job. And it was like $25 an hour. It was crazy.

And so I was living a pretty cool life. I have to say that was a great little span right there. I really liked it. Well, yeah, it was such a beautiful town. Like, I loved they had, like, a little theater community, and they were always filming stuff down there. And so I used to see the Dawson's Creek all the time. Totally. And I think Vince Vaughn even got stabbed there at a bar fight. It was such a random, they should make, like, a movie just about. I heard it was Steve Buscemi. I don't know. Maybe both of them did. Oh, to get, no, it was definitely Vince Vaughn who got stabbed

because allegedly he was hitting on some local boy's girlfriend or something. Who would stab Steve? He's so sweet. And I used to see him all the time when I lived in Brooklyn. The world is so small. It's crazy. I can't believe you live in Wilmington. Correction.

It was Steve Busemi who got stabbed. He and Vince Vaughn were in Wilmington to film the movie domestic disturbance, ironically. And according to some witnesses at the Firebelly Lounge, a local man picked a bite with the actors when he saw Vince talking to his girlfriend. But other witnesses say that that same local guy had been

talking about wanting to slice somebody that night. Either way, it was poor Steve who ended up getting stabbed in the throat, arm, and above his eye. Thankfully, he survived to continue being one of my favorite actors, and Vince Fawn teamed up with Owen Wilson to make classic such as Wedding Crashers,

old school, and the internship, which I personally think is very underrated. So why a food tour company? What was like your mission? When I got here, I originally thought I was going to do all my creative stuff. And then I quickly realized that like as a freelancer, when you invoice people, you get paid. Like they have like 90 days to pay you, but you have to pay the tax on it, which is called Eva. You have to pay the Eva as soon as you do the invoice.

I can't remember it was a while ago. But it was just like, now I understand why no one has any money in Italy. And I was living off at chickpeas and yogurt. And like occasionally I would splurge and get some ricotta cheese at the grocery store. I was like really broke. And I met a friend. Actually, I'm going down to Rome today to see him. He's a cinematographer.

And he got me a couple of jobs working on movies back in the States and in the Caribbean. So I went back and got paid for working and was like, wow, this is awesome. like making money and having money in my bank account, I could get used to this. And as soon as I got home, my roommate's boyfriend's friend who had a wine tour company needed somebody who spoke English.

And I went and interviewed, and it took him a while to talk me into it because I didn't know how to drive a stick, but I eventually worked for him for a while and really got me. I was already passionate about food. I didn't, I liked wine, but I didn't have the money to buy wine before that.

And wine's pretty cheap here. That's how broke I was. I didn't have the money to go and, you know, experiment and drink good wine. And then when I worked for him, I was going to wineries and seeing how the wine was made and getting to really know it in its context. And, of course, it was amazing because I was out on the countryside and the rolling hills of Tuscany. And there was a free lunch. So also, I, you know, I would eat the lunch every day, which was, for me, it was amazing to get to eat real food. And basically, like, the more and more I worked for him, the more I realized that the people that were taking the tour,

and they had a great time. It's a great company. It still exists. I realized that they were always asking me where to eat in town. And I started bringing business cards with me and just giving them. I had like a little rolodex with me, like a little folder thing with me. And I had all my little business cards organized, like, who wants steak, who wants pasta, who wants this, who wants that. And it would take like a good 20 or 30 minutes at the end of the tour to give everybody all the information they wanted.

But they would stand around and wait for it because they really wanted it. And basically, the lunch was really good on that tour. but I mean it was really good. I would still say I would still go eat that for sure. But they would often say it was the best thing they'd eat since they'd been in Italy. And so I started to kind of inquire like, what have you been eating?

And I realized, you know, you and I know because we both lived here, you get a very small window of time in which you actually get to eat the good meals in Italy. You can eat good snacks, but you have to know where they are. But in between lunch and dinner, which is basically from like 2.30 or 3 till 7.30 or 8,

if you're hungry and you want to have real food, tough luck. And back then nobody had Airbnb, nobody was staying in apartments. So what did you end up eating? Slices of pizza, panini, which by the way, panini is plural. Panino.

So I'm sorry, I have to say that. I'm on a mission. It's not anybody's fault. They don't know. So like the panini back then were, you know, there was like one slice of prosciutto and it was sitting there all day and practically look like you could talk.

to you because it was flapping open and the sandwiches were not good back then either. There were maybe two or three people that had figured out that they should be making good sandwiches because why not, right? But now there's a bunch of great sandwich places back then. There were maybe two or three. But even so, you can't eat panini all the time. And so that's what these people were saying. You know, we went to do feats yesterday and we got out at three and we were starving. And then we ended up having to go to a self-service, which is like a cafeteria. And so I realized, okay, I got to save these people because I didn't move here and basically give up a career in photography to then hear that the food isn't good. That's like against everything I stand for. Right. And that's why

I started what it's why I started taste Florence, which I'm going to say it because my mom even sometimes throws in of. Okay. Love in there and I realized it wasn't the most brilliant name I could have in my company. It's just, it's active. It's taste Florence. So if anybody wants to, to put an oven they can, but they might not find me. Yes, I went on your tour a few weeks ago. I guess it was a few weeks ago. It feels like too long ago. Yeah.

But had a fabulous time. And you really do a good job of just introducing everyone in the group. I felt like we were such like a tight little, you know, like we had been friends for a while. It was really fun. And a small group as well, like you don't let it get too big. How would you describe Florence for people who don't know much? about it. Where is it geographically? What does the postcard look like? A lot of people don't realize when they come to Florence that they are in Tuscany because Florence is actually the capital of

Tuscany. And I think because of all the books and movies about Tuscany, the region itself, a lot of people just think of Tuscany is this town or something they're supposed to go to. Florence is the capital of Tuscany. And Florence is kind of in central Tuscany. And Tuscany is kind of in central Italy, a little further north. And part of Tuscany has coastline. So if you go towards Pisa, Livorno, what's known as Leghorn in English, all the way down to the Isola de Gillo, Isola di Elba, you've got that beautiful coastline, some with sandy beaches, some with rocks and some with Skoli, which would be cliffs, like those big rocky cliff things. Being in North Carolina girl, I prefer sand, and there are a few good sandy beaches in Tuscany. So Florence is great

because you're located close enough to the sea. There's some skiing kind of in between here and the sea outside of the, kind of in between here in Pisa. You can go to Abitone, which I believe is part of the province of Luca. So there's a little bit of everything. Florence itself, we're in a valley. So we're in a valley, and Florence is cut in half by the river Arno. So the good part of being in this valley and having this river is it's scenic. You've got beautiful rolling hills kind of all behind the historic buildings.

And even within town, if you cross over the river from the northern side of town to the southern side, you've got Piazza di Michelangelo, which is this elevated square where you can look down and see the beautiful Ponte Vecchio and see all the scenery. You kind of get the best of both worlds because you're in the city, but it feels like you're very close to the countryside because you are very close to the countryside. The downfall of this is that you get really hot, humid summers and damp cold winters. Yeah. And like the city itself, it's actually quite small, especially some of the little alleyways that you walk down. I often feel like I'm in little America because there's just so many tourists. How do you find it difficult to manage? Or like how do you? Yeah. I mean, those of us that live here and it's, you know, we're all, I feel like a hypocrite sometimes because here I'm, I'm American. So like, who am I to say there's too many tourists? You know, I do have Italian citizenship. But, you know, the city was nice enough. to let me live here. And most of us, a lot of the jobs here are based on tourism.

So we do want tourism. The problem is we want sustainable tourism. We want, you know, people that are here and sleeping here and going to museums and, you know, not just reaping the benefits of the culture, but also giving something back to the city, whether it be, you know, helping the economy by being here or even participating in cultural events and things like that. And we do have a lot of that. We have a lot of expats over here.

But then what you see, when you see those crowds, nowadays, it's really increased, I think, in the last five or ten years. It's a lot of these big bus groups that come in. They park them on the river, and they throw headphones on them. And I'm talking probably 30 to 40, sometimes even 50 people. And like you said, Florence is small. So you get these big groups and you don't get one. You get probably, I don't know, how many of those.

at least 30 of those groups walking around in town every day. And then they leave at night. So they come here, they most likely eat a bad lunch because the tour they're on in order to find somewhere that they can seat, you know, 40 or 50 people has to go to like these places that no one would really ever go to. So that's another reason why people think the food isn't that great, which still kills me. So my advice would be anyone who tells you you can see Florence in a day. If that's how they did it, that's okay, but they didn't really see Florence.

And I would say, you know, if you don't have a lot of time, I understand that everyone has a lot of vacation time. Give yourself at least bare minimum three days. And what I would recommend is the first day do something like either a walking cultural tour, history tour, or not to give myself a plug, but, you know, not bad to do a food tour the first day. Taste Florence, yes. Thank you. And then give yourself some time to rest midday. So like, for example, my food tour usually finishes around two.

And if you're here in the summer, which most people come, you know, when it's hot out, then I don't want to encourage you to take a nap because then it gets you a lot of whack. But try to maybe just give yourself like an hour to rest. Go sit and people watch in a cafe or if you're an active type, walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo and look at the views. And then take the time to rest. really walk around the city and enjoy the city in the evening because all those big buses I mentioned, those leave usually by 6 p.m., maybe 7 p.m. So, you know, kind of let yourself relax during the

day instead of trying to walk around in the crowded streets when they're hot and stuffy and enjoy everything in the evening. Florence is a really, it's a very safe city. I'm not going to say it's perfect. We do have some petty crime like purse theft and things like that. But as long as you're walking around and you're not inebriated. I don't recommend anyone to walk around drunk anywhere. But if you're walking around and, you know, especially with someone else and you just have your wits about you, Florence is a pretty safe city and it's so much more beautiful in the evening when the sun's going down, the colors change. Because Florence is this crazy mix of these stones, like just like a lot of, like it's like a dark gray stone. And you've got stone everywhere.

and then you've got these buildings, and some of them have facades that are painted colors, but it's not like when you go to the Amalfi Coast or when you go to Burano. They're not these bright colors. They're very muted. And I feel like the more feminine and soft and elegant side of Florence, the best time to see that is early morning or in the evening, like when the sun is low. So if you're a morning person, get up and go for a jog or a walk and enjoy the city while, you know, the shops are opening up.

And if you're not a morning person, don't worry, sleep in, do your thing. And then just take the time in the evening to really take a nice walk and, you know, consider, try to eat in a couple of places that are outside if possible, which is an easy in Florence. We don't have that many places that are good and have outdoor seating. But I do recommend doing at least one. So can you recommend one or two of these outdoor places? you could go to the entire Piazza Santo Spirito is it's the square of Santo Spirito I love the

Santo Spirito church it's my favorite of all the churches yes that's um square it's just yeah it's in Florence it's on the south side of the river what's called the ultrarno the other side of the river um it's an area where you know if you're like in your between I would say between 28 and 58 that's where you want to be you don't want to be in Santa Croce. Santa Croce is like if you're in college or a teenager and you want to drink beer sitting on steps. Whereas Sampo Spirito, you can sit in a cafe and have a prosceco or a spritz. If you want to sit on the steps of the church, we discourage that, but people tend to do it anyway. There's a great little pizza place nearby that doesn't have a lot of seating inside,

but they have very good pizza. It's, what is it called, Gustaf pizza. And a lot of people just get a pizza to go from there and they go and sit on the steps in front of Santo Spirito. Again, I'm not supposed to tell you to do that. There's a couple of restaurants in the square. None of the restaurants in the square make me go, oh man, I've got to eat here. But one right off of the square that doesn't have outdoor seating. So I'm kind of like fact-tracking here. The one that doesn't have outdoor seating that I do like is called Casalinga.

I would go to Santo Spirito and do like an apitivo or an after-dinner drink because they're open all night, like not all night, till two-ish. So after dinner you could go and get a drink and there's lots of different seating areas. And a drink is a drink unless you're looking for some super-duper cracked cocktail that'll get the job done there. It's also near the Boboli Gardens, which is I think my favorite thing in Florence. So it's on the other side of this Medici palace, which is now a museum. And you can either do the museum and the gardens or just the gardens. And on a nice day, it's so nice to just walk through, walk up the big hill. You've got another nice view up there.

And then after that, then yeah, then go get your drink or meal in Santa Spirita. Glad you brought that up because there are, okay, you just made me think of a couple of other places I really like. there's a place called it's got a kind of if you speak at a time and the name is kind of weird but it's Piti Gola and it's a little Enoteca

right in front of the Pee Palace and they have excellent wines small plates of food it's not the kind of place you want to go for like a hearty meal but the food's amazing they only have seating for maybe 10 to 12 people outside

and if you can't score a table there I recommend their restaurant that they just opened about a year ago you continue, like if you continue with, Piti Golo would be on your right and lots of Piti would be on your left and you keep going straight, straight, straight, straight, straight, straight. And eventually you're almost at Puerto Romana.

And on the right is, it's called Osteria del Enoteca, because the Anoteca opened the Osteria, that's why it's got that name. And it's, for me, it's like, if I want to go somewhere, have a nice meal and a nice atmosphere, great service, great wine, and not spend a fortune. I'm not telling you it's like dirt cheap, but for what you get, I think it's the best thing going right now. Again, no outdoor seating.

Sorry. Most of the good places don't have out of doing it. So I'm going to get back to the outdoor seating really quick. Totally different neighborhood. Well, too, okay, it's kind of nearby and very trendy right now. It's called San Fradyano. It's a neighborhood. And in San Fridiano, they also just redid the Piazzated Carmine.

So now there's actually some benches and trees there. It's much nicer than it used to be. There's lots and lots of little places to go there. Some of them have some outdoor seating. And a place that I recommend, if you want to have a very casual meal, also good vegetarian options, and then, yeah, and be like kind of indoor outdoor. It's Santa Rosa Bistro. It's called that because it's on the Santoroza Lungarno.

Any street that's a Lungarno is a street that's on the Arno River. So Lungarno Santa Rosa or Lungarno Cereseri. Lungarno just means it's a street on the river, the Arno River. So if you're looking at an address and it says Lungarno, then you know you need to be at the river. And then you just figure out what part of the river. So anyway, that place is great and they do a great brunch. And I rarely get impressed by brunch here because they claim to do it. And then it's usually the eggs are all wrong and the, you know, breakfast, like pancake, waffle, whatever.

French toast is all wrong. This place has a little bit of everything. They have bagels and stuff. So their brunch is good, but then their other meals are good too. And then they also have kind of small plates to have with drinks in the evening. And it's like a really cool little vibe. And part of the indoor, you're like indoor, indoor, and then they took a terrace and they covered it. So it's almost like being seated in a little greenhouse. And there's also seating outside there, little couch areas. And also a couple of steps that you can sit on there. And it's near the river and they even have a few lawn chairs out so you can sit there and kind of just chill and read a book and get a drink. And they're open most of the days from what I can tell. Can we talk more about

food culture in Florence? I really loved the bakery that you took us to on your tour. I think you used to live above it. Could you tell us more about who owns that bakery and what we tried there? The owners are brother and sister. And I actually posted a photo of the brother yesterday on Instagram for like the millionth time because I love him. His name's Ramo and his sister's name is Ivana. And ironically, Ivana loves to be photographed and she's a total ham and I don't think I have any photos of her posted on here. And he's really shy and I'm always taking pictures of him because he just kind of reminds me a little bit. It's going to sound weird, but he kind of reminds me my maternal grandmother. So I just have a soft spot for him. And his brother and sister, they've been there

for over 50 years, but the bakery goes back over 100 years. So it's a registered historic shop of Florence as a chitzy store to cheese, as I say. And there's a lot of great things to eat there. There's things that I could easily serve and know that everybody would like, like the little they have pizzas and mini pizzas and things like that and things with mozzarella. And what I figured also when I started kind of just watching people's habits when they're on vacation here, everyone goes for what they can pronounce or what they can. recognize. And so usually people go into a bakery like that and they get the first thing they see

with a big hunk of mozzarella or something that looks like brusquetta, you know, something that's relatively easy to order. So I don't serve those. I serve usually the stuffed bread. It's a scyachata ripiana and there's different fillings. I like to serve. Depends on the group. If I have vegetarians, I'll usually serve the Parmigiano and artichoke or I might serve the Gorgonzola and apple. There's also the one that I'd serve the most. If there aren't any

vegetarians, I serve the sausage and strakino. Those are ingredients that are usually spread on top of a crostino and Laurentines will eat that raw, but I'm not trying to get sick. So I like to have a hudel up. Most restaurants, when they have a Tuscan appetizer,

will have that crostino with the sausage and strachino cheese melted on top, like under a broiler. and that's really easy to do at home. It's one of my favorite things to eat at parties and make it parties. So I serve the sketch-a-vza version of it because they're really good at that. They also have the spried dough that everyone makes it differently. So theirs is pretty soft.

The ultimate ultimate is if you find it where it's soft on the inside but cooked and crunchy on the outside. That's like the holy grail of kukuli. That's pretty hard to find though. But their coqually are a little softer, but still really yummy. And with tomato and mozzarella, I think. Yeah, we had it with tomato and mozzarella, only because we had already had prosciutto somewhere else. Another, yeah, I try not to, because otherwise it's just like the pork tour and people need the other things.

So even though the traditional filling would be prosciutto and strucino cheese, since we have prosciutto elsewhere, I do the tomato and mozzarella. Also because it just works really well in the coquoli. But I would recommend a similar to go into a bakery if they have them because not all bakeries do to get one of each. Get the tomato and mozzarella and get the prosciutto and strachino because they're both really good. And what was the name of their bakery again? The problem is it doesn't really have a name on the door. It just says forno. It's the forno.

It's kind of confusing. It's the forno canopa di Ivana Bruski. because canapa, from what I've been able to decipher, it was the last name of the original owners. And then Ivana Bruski is the current owner, she and her brother, Ramos. So it's Forno Canapa di Ivana Bruski. And it's on Google finally,

but it says, because Kanapa in English is hemp. So it says the hemp bakery. My thing I want to look into, I need to ask louder, the girl that speaks English there. Like, how many people have come in asking for bread made out of hunk because I guarantee you it's happened. Yeah, that name is confusing because you'll see forno everywhere.

Like, everywhere. So you have to go to theirs. Go to Ramos bakery. I love that bakery. Well, don't worry because what I love about this bakery is even though it's tiny, they managed to keep up with the times and to, you know, stay open, even though there have been larger bakeries. Like, when I live there as a student, if you can remember, like, from when we left the

meeting point, we walked kind of up and then turned onto that block. On the corner of the other block in between the meeting point in the bakery, there used to be like a really fancy schmancy huge bakery on the corner, which I mean, if you can't make a bakery work on a corner, foot traffic, then your bread is not good. I'm sorry. Okay. So when I was here as a student, I went to Ramo's bakery and then I went to the other bakery. And within one bite, I knew the other bakery was just junk and it was they went on the business yeah and he delivers bread all over town all over um most mostly that neighborhood and you know i call and you've seen ramo and if anybody wants to see a picture they should definitely look on um on my instagram page but

which just stays florence but um ramo is i don't know exactly how old he is like 70ish maybe 75 um but i call him the delivery boy because He looks like the fauns. Like he's got his white t-shirt on. And even in the winter, and Italians are afraid of getting cold. He will walk around in a white t-shirt without a jacket and deliver bread all over the neighborhood.

And I always joke around and say he has a twin because he'll go out the door and he'll go out. Like he'll leave and go off to my right while I'm talking to guests. And then like next thing I know he's coming from the left. How would you do that? Like I guess he runs around the block or something to play a trick on me. But he's so fast. So he's the baker, but he's also the delivery boy.

And then his sister is just, she's like the, she's the face of the operation. She's the one that like chats it up with everybody. And she gets her hair done every, it used to be every Saturday. I think now she's doing it every Friday. And she, you know, she gets dressed up. And what I love about her too is she goes around and like, notches on the free samples in the market. She's so cute.

Yeah. Tell us more about the market. So the market, the central market dates back to the 1860s. They opened it apparently when Italy was unified and Florence was the capital of Italy for a few years in the 1860s. They decided to kind of like, you know, make the city more metropolitan and more impressive. And so they built the central market and they also built a smaller market on the other side of town called Santo Ambrogo, I believe a couple years after the central market.

and same architects. And the central market, when I was living across the street essentially over Ramo's Bakery, the central market was all, you know, mom and pop operation. There were, I mean, back then you couldn't get cilantro. I used to have to go into, there was one little Asian shop around the corner from my house, and I would have to go in there and be like,

I would give me two sprigs of cilantro. It was like there was a cilantro short. Now you've got you've got salonsor. You've got like a bunch of different people like Peruvians that have shops in the market now, so you can get all that stuff. But the downstairs part of the market has remained mostly historic shops. And then you've got a few random, I want to say other expats that have opened stuff up in their Peruvians and so forth.

And then you've got a couple of restaurants, the original restaurant, the one that we go to for the sandwich is called NERBone. and the rbone is it's kind of like half sandwich stand and half restaurant slash cafeteria because it's like a self-service but in a good way and the sandwiches there are incredible and not too far from there there is a pasta place where I think the best like lemony ravioli it was incredible I'm still thinking about yeah I'm glad to hear that because I love, I'm obsessed with lemon. And so I'm worried that I'm like giving people too much lemon stuff.

Never would have like, I never would have chosen it myself. So it was great that you, yeah, I think it's great that you let us try it. What was the name of that place? So that place, once again, like another generic name, it's called pasta fresca. And it's downstairs. It's the only fresh pasta shop downstairs. And they've been there since I believe in 1989. and up until like a few years ago you could only buy the pasta and take at home and cook it.

And they furnish most of the restaurants in the area because, you know, not all restaurants have the space to make the pasta every day. So a lot of the pasta you see them making, you can see there's like a glass window. A lot of that gets delivered in these little refrigerators in the back of motorcycles. I love those. The lemon pasta is so simple. It's just reculta cheese and lemon zest on the inside. and I served it with oil and paramediano. And then, of course, when you make the pasta,

you toss it around with a little tiny bit of the pasta water in the pan for the last minute. So you finish cooking the pasta in the pan after you drain the pasta. And you want to make sure you don't overcook it. And so that's why it had like that creamy, almost buttery looking sauce on it. But it was just olive oil, a little bit of the pasta water and parmigiano. So that's how much that lemon stands out. It's amazing. It was just very fresh.

that whole market is just so cool because even though it's old it still has like a very vibrant feel you know there's food markets in all the major cities these days and kind of hipster and i would say florence also has a bit of that flare especially when you go up the stairs all those little restaurant spots plus a public bathroom which is a good little top tip yeah yeah so the upstairs i've lost check but i think it was three or four years ago, they opened a modern food hall upstairs, which is in the beginning, I was resistant. I was like a cratchity, you know, like old man that was like, I used to have to walk up hill in the snow to get my oranges, you know, but like now I love it. So what I was worried when they said they were going to open that, I thought it was going to hurt the business downstairs, but it's actually been really good for the business downstairs because the market downstairs, they're all like, I mean, not all, but mostly family owned, nine out of ten are not good,

don't have good business sense. The advertising for the upstairs, which is like basically a whole other entity, it's in the same building, but it's a modern food hall. Upstairs is open until midnight. The downstairs is open technically to like 2.30-ish. I still can't figure out exactly when it closes because they always say, sometimes they say two, sometimes they say four.

I'm like, okay, two-thirty-ish. And the downstairs, when it closes, you can still get upstairs by using an escalator that's on the outside of the building. But anyway, the upstairs is. As much as I didn't want to like it because I thought that it would be like betraying my friends down on the downstairs. It's not bad at all because there's three bathrooms. There's plenty of stuff upstairs that they don't have downstairs. There's seating.

There's heating and air conditioning. It's like a whole other world up there. So even though I don't go there in my free time, I have to be honest because for me to go there in my free time, like at dinner time and lunchtime, it's packed up there. I don't like it up there during meal times. But it's a great place to go in between lunch and dinner for like a light, quick meal. And it's a great place to go if you're at the market anytime and need to use the bathroom because there's like, I would say what, did you see maybe like five to ten stalls with toilet seats and soap and stuff, which is a big deal in Italy? And another place that I really loved was the postidia that you took us to. We had such a warm, I can't even remember the name of the pastry that we tried. Can you remind me?

I believe you had a spolia. Did it have cream inside? Yes. Yeah, the spolia a la crema. And that's the one I tend to serve the most. And the reason for that is because it's the most popular pastry. It's the one like I, when I splurge, I get a spolia. And if I want to get a spolia late in the morning, which is my style on a free day,

then I want to get that one because that's the one they make once an hour. It's the only one you're going to find warm. They make other flavors that are really good, but you got to get those early in the morning because it's the only batch they make. So if I get there earlier, I'll get the one with reculta, which is really good. They have one with, I think it's pear and chocolate. Because there's another pastry shop I love that does pear and reculta, and that's my absolute favorite. Was this pastichita Sieni?

Yes. Pastichita Sieni. And that's also historic. And did you say that that's what people would typically go for if they were getting breakfast in a place like that, as opposed to like a rioch somewhere else? Well, I mean, it depends. It's personal taste, right? So, Italians, they, most of them like their briochi, corneti, that look like a croissant, but deliver, like, a disappointment.

I'm sorry, I don't. Like a croissant and a brioche had a bad one. I stand. It's not the same thing. I used to love all Italian pastries, and I'm sure I'm going to get, like, ostracized if this goes on the air, but I don't care anymore. I have to say it. I used to be, like, because I was living off of chickpeas, the one thing I could afford to do was to go to pastry shops on a regular basis because back then I had really good metabolism and you can get a pastry and a coffee for like usually under 250 as long as you don't sit down. So that was my way of like treating myself like a lady.

It was going out for breakfast as often as I could. And I at the time loved all of them. I loved the corneti, which are the ones that kind of look like a croissant but don't taste like them. And I love the spolia. And then they've got some other things, but the breakfast pastries are kind of in those two categories. Oh, my favorite. The other one I love is the budino di Rizzo, the little rice pudding pie. When they're good, they're really good.

And they're not always good, but really good pastry shops, even properly, where they cook the rice in the milk. And it's all about, like, the budino gods coming together because you've got to get, like, the right texture. It can't be too dry. It can't be too sticky inside. It can't be too sweet. It can't be too bland. I mean, it's, it's not easy to make a good budino. I've only found a few that I really like. It was good where we were. Okay, good. I don't eat the food every day anymore. I used to. So I used to do quality control all the time, but I can't. Like my doctor really seriously, you're not 20 anymore. So I only eat maybe one thing every day when I do a tour. But you started to tell us, like, how can we avoid eating bad pastry in Florence? A good pastry shop is called a pasticheria, which the French version would be like a patisserie.

So you want to go to a pasticheria and it should say it outside. It usually will say pasticheria, production, like in-house production, whereas we like we like to say in the States, artisanal. So everything's artisanal now. So proper production for pastries, it means that it's made in-house. unfortunately for gelato they throw that term around more than they should but anyway it should say that outside but then also when you walk inside what vibe do you get is there a huge beautiful pastry case with lots and lots of pastries that you know they couldn't have had those all brought in by a truck

and it looks like they made them there as promised on the sign outside or do you walk in and there's like two sad little pastries that look like they've been there for five days that's the first thing just like the visual check second of all time of day don't try to get a good pastry at 6 p.m. You're not going to find a lot of good pastries at 6 p.m. With that said, most pastry shops around 4 p.m. will make one batch of their kind of donuts. The ones that, usually the ones that don't have a hole in the middle.

And bomboloni, I never eat those. I think it's bomboloni, the cream inside. I never eat them because they're so good that I never eat them. You know what I mean? And usually they'll make a batch of those around four And some places will make one batch of the spolia again around four Other than that though Like pastries are a morning thing

They're a breakfast thing So if you want to have a good pastry Skip the sad Unless you're in like a really good hotel that has an amazing Breakfast Even if you get a free breakfast at your hotel If it's like generic yogurt That's warm and granola out of one of those like spouty things

just leave and go to a pastry shop. You'll get a good cappuccino and a good pastry because that's when you're supposed to eat them. Very good tip. But I wanted to ask something and if you don't want to put this on, please, you know, it's cool. But once upon it's, I kind of want to set the record straight about something. I don't know how long ago, like six years ago or something. I had the honor of being written about in a newspaper. I'm not going to say which one.

And it's not really that the journalist made a mistake. they just misunderstood what I said. Okay. And I just set the record straight because people got on, I think it's on either Chowhound or Eater. I read something, you know, like years ago, you know, you're like not supposed to read comments people make about you because this is never good, you know?

But he read the article, and rightfully so, they said the following. So first I'll tell you what happened. I was with the reporter. We had stopped to have a glass of wine in a little cafe. And next to us, these two Italian guys sat down, They weren't from Florence. And so they started asking me where to eat. So I was, like, turning back and forth, talking to them in Italian.

And then to be polite, I was translating to the reporters in English. And so what I had said to the Italian was, I was recommending, and I'll tell you the exact dish. It was the tortino di Cartofi, which is this artichoke and egg splendor. They make it in lots of places. But the one that they make at Sostanza, Tractoria Sostanza. It's like in a whole different level. It's like if you know if they asked you what you want for your last meal on earth before they, you know, you get executed that kind of thing.

You want the tortino di Carchoki. I'm assuming that copious amounts of butter are in this thing because it just tastes like there is. And I don't know how they make it, but it's like a vortex of eggy yumminess. Okay. It has like these thin layers all like as if they were like just like swirling, swirling, swirling, swirling until it freezes in the pan. And in the middle are some artichokes that,

appear to have been maybe dusted in flour and cooked in butter before the egg situation happened. I've never been able to figure it out. And I've done heavy flirting with the cook to try to get into that kitchen. And he's actually said he'll teach me, but the problem is it's always really busy. And I don't want to go there alone because I've done a little... It's really sad that I'm not in Florence right now. And then I cannot access this meal. You're going to have to come back.

And we will go to... Okay, this is the plan. We've got to figure out when I'm free. Because in October, October is crazy for me. But we'll have you come back. We'll do olive oil. So maybe early November. Olive oil at a mill.

We'll do, we'll have this tortino di Cartofi. And there was something else we talked about. Oh, and we'll go to a saga. We'll go to like a truffle festival or something. Okay. That's perfect. Done. Anyway, sorry.

Go on. No problem. So back then, you know, I, even though I didn't study journals and I studied communications. So I didn't know that you could call up in these people and be like, I didn't really say that. And plus, like, you don't really want to complain when a newspaper of that caliber writes an article about you. So I just, like, rolled with it.

But then I found this comments on either. What did she say? That was incorrect. Okay. So we're at this place, and I'm, you know, going back and forth, and I'm translating between me and the Italians to the journalist. And because I don't want to be rude, but it's not, it doesn't dawn to me that this is somehow going to get included in the article, right?

Right. So, and also, you know, she was taking. notes, but it was like very back and forth. I was turning to them and I was saying, make sure you go to Sostanza. And because they said, I know what they said. They said, where can we have the best steak of Fiorentina? And I said, if you don't have a car and you have to have it in town, I would definitely go to Sostanza because it's a solidly reliable good Florentine steak at Sostanza. And I was like, but if you go, even more importantly, you have to get the Tortino di Cartlofi, the thing I just described. And I said to them, it's better than sex.

Somehow in the article, instead of saying that Toto di Karchopi was better than sex, and I'm sure because when I turned to translate and I didn't even realize this was going to go in the article, I just said I was telling him. So I don't know how she wrote it down, but an article it basically says that I said Tuscan food is better than sex. Okay. And rightfully so, somebody on Chowhound or eat or whatever it was back then, like made fun of me. It was like, that sounds like she doesn't have a very good sex life. But I would like to say for the record, back then, I didn't.

and just by pure chance. But no, honestly, it had nothing to do with that. It was a miscommunication. I do not think that Tuscan food is better than sex. On the contrary, Tuscan food is more like reliably decent to good sex on a regular basis. Because Tuscan food is, it is great, but it's not always earth-shattering. But sometimes you find a dish like the Tortino de Tartropi is better than sex. Okay.

That's what I would like to say on the record. I will tell everyone. I really do hope this gets included because it's been killing me for years. I'll include it. Thank you. All right. Before you go, a light round of some of your Florence favorites. What is your favorite bakery in Florence?

So the one we went to, the Fordnault, Ivana and Ramos Fordnall. I love Sieni for the pastries in the morning. Ninchoni, pasticheria Giorgio, which is like a schlep to get there if you're not staying in that area. But if you're on that side of town, Georgia is awesome.

Those are the three that come to mind. What is Georgia's story? Georgeo is like, it's like where Florentines go to meet up and have, he has great pastries, he has great epitavi, you can go there on a Sunday and there's like about 20 tables outside

and have a leisurely breakfast. which usually when you have breakfast here, even though the pastries are good, nine times out of ten, you just stand and like scarf it down at the counter. And so I like Georgia because you go and it's like a civilized version of Italian breakfast. And he makes a great club sandwich too, which is an Italian, but sometimes you just need a club sandwich. Yeah. Where do you go when you want to have like a relaxing coffee? Relaxing coffee.

Yeah, I haven't done that in so long. It's so funny because I used to do relaxing coffee in the States. and everything else is so hurried there. It's like this weird paradox in the States we sit around and sip on coffee, like buckets of coffee. But then we're in a hurry to do everything. And over here they're like in no hurry to do anything. And coffee is you're in and out in like two minutes. So I don't really do leisurely coffee.

I would say the one I mentioned before, Santa Rosa Bistro would be a good place. There's a place that I could never pronounce. I will spell it. M-E-N-A-G-R-I-E, I think. I just call it the glass menagerie because I love that. I love that Tennessee Williams play, but I know that's not the way. It's not the name. It's menagerie or menagerie or something like that.

Anyway, I don't particularly like it for a meal, but it has a great seating area. Lots of little outdoor indoor seating. There's like a floral shop inside. They make good cocktails too. So coffee, tea, cocktails, that place, however you pronounce it. the French, uppity French name, but yeah. How about lunch? Lunch, lunch, lunch.

Okay, so, for a while, I was having lunch almost all the time at a place called Coconarius, which is still on my map. Coquinaridonarios, I like for lunch, though, when it's cold and rainy and, you know, that kind of thing or overcast outside. In the summer, I don't go very often because it's, it's, there's no outdoor seating, you can't really see anything. Although they do have, you know, relatively good air conditioning. So if you're here in the summer, I would say go for it.

But in the winter, definitely go for it. They have great pasta dishes and the menu is seasonal. So I like to go there. And then I've been dying to tell you this because a vegetarian tip, BRAC, V-R-A-C. And it's like a libri-a, like a bookshop slash restaurant. And I've never been there for dinner. I've always gone at lunch. I don't know what it's like at dinner,

because I'd love it so much at lunch, I don't want to go at dinner. At lunchtime, they've got like a little inner courtyard, so there's lots of light, and they do these plates where you can pick out, you can either do things all a cart, or you can get like a little sample platter, which is not the easiest thing to find in Italy.

And it's quite filling, and it's a lot of really good vegetarian and vegan food, and some things with meat, too, if you want meat, but most of it, or no, I don't know. I have to take that back. I don't know if I even saw meat. now that I think of it. It might be totally vegetarian.

So I love going there for lunch because it has a great atmosphere. It's off the beaten track. I feel healthy. I feel like I'm, you know, being a good citizen by eating vegetarian. It's just a good place. How about pizza? Pizza, pizza. If you want in town to have a good pizza,

depending on your style, because it's more than it's thin and crispy. And the traditional pizza is not thick like the, you know, super thick crusts, but it's like your Napolitano style where the crusts, where the crust, the border is kind of puffy. And usually real Napolitano pizzioli, they only make like five or six types of pizzas. So there's one that's really good in the upstairs

of the central market that we mentioned before. And they have a seating area. It's an uppity up upstairs of the market. So if you go above the pizza ovens to the right, there's a little staircase, and you can sit upstairs, and there's tables and they serve you and everything. So that's a good civilized way to have a pizza,

and that's been a fortune. Do you remember? Gustav pizza. Sorry. Do you remember the name of that place? I think it's called sued. It's the only pizza place in the central market, so you can't miss it. At least at the moment, it's the only pizza place.

And then there's a place near Santa Croce that's called sued. I'm pretty sure they're the same people, like the same business. It's just that in the Mercato-Chryl, everything's kind of generic. You don't really see the names very well. So that's why I'm having a hard time. But it's only pizza place in the market. And then there's a place. near Santa Croce in Via de la

vina Vecca, I think. It's like on the corner and it's connected to cafe Italiano and that pizziolo is really good and same story, there's like maybe seven types of pizza. And then Gusta Pizza, the one in Santa Cruzche is good. All three of those have that style

like the authentic style pizza. How about gelato? A gelato. So gelato for me is it's not like a one place deal. it's depending on what flavor I want. So if I want pistachio, hands down the best pistachio

is kerkeno. I had one yesterday. It was really good. Okay. If I want mint and I don't want it to be like, ew, that tasted like mouthwash, but like mint. Bastry, the Chucle-Tier, he doesn't do it all the time, but when he does it,

he infuses the mint leaves into the cream and it is so good, so good. I had a guest like two days ago that was adorable. I think he was maybe 20 at the most. He was with his mom. He was vegetarian. Like while we were walking from one point to another, we were talking about politics.

And he told me he had just done a whole thing of like a paper for school about how there's too many chemicals and body soap. And he was just like the most cool dude ever met. And when I served him the mint jolato from bed, and he was just like on the verge of tears he was so happy it's that good um and then there's there's so many places all over town there's places that like i like might like some of the flavors and not like the other flavors at all so like gelatinity de denii i love their kind of naughty flavors all the chocolatey flavors and creamy flavors and that stuff i'm not a big

fan of their fruit flavors and then there's some places where maybe i like the fruit more you know so but i would say if you if you only have one day in town and you want to get reliably good gelato, I would say, Hercay, no, because I don't think I've ever had a gelato I didn't like there. Their mint is natural mint, but it's the mint extract, so it's still really minty. So that's the one flavor I don't get there. But they do, like, daily flavors. Like, lately they've been doing curry, and I think it's curry with mango. And it's really good. Okay. How about dinner? So where do I go? If I want to have a good dinner, I know it's going to be good. I love to go to Casalinga, which is right off of Stokeo.

I love to go to Osir de Leneoteca, which is the one that was opened by the Enoteca Pitigola. Lately, because it's summer, I've been going to mostly food festivals and outdoor cafes and stuff, so I'm kind of like out of practice. I really like this place that's been around for a long time, some people know about it, some don't. But it's called La Bepa Fiuraia. And that's another one that's fun that has kind of, indoor, it's indoor, but it feels outdoor, and they have some outdoor seating. And that's over in

the San Nicolou neighborhood, which is good that it's over there because most of the other places I'm not that fond of. I used to be fond of some of the places. I had some wacky experiences lately. Okay. I'm not going to say the name of business, but there's one place that I used to recommend that I went in there with my boyfriend and he, like, all he did was yell at my boyfriend the whole time. It was so weird. So I have to like, I have to stop recommending that place. It's just so sad. It's so good. telling at him. I find strange when restaurants do that or like business in general. Yeah, he's kind of like the, I mean, everyone always quotes it, but he's kind of like the soup Nazi on

Seinfeld. It's like you go in and like you have to behave a certain way. I think he just, I think he's at a point in his life where he can't work with the public anymore. Okay. And it's a shame because his food's really good. And like I almost like sat him down and talked to him about it because I was appalled. That's the thing about Florence is that sometimes you have great food, but you've got grumpy service. Sometimes you've got great ambience, but the food isn't that great. Sometimes you've got great ambience and great food, and the service is wacky. It's like, it's kind of a grab bag.

Well, hopefully you can get good service and good food. Oh, God, that's a tough one. Well, the Osteria de Lentataka, for me, is flawless. Like, they're so nice and professional. Also, there's, oh, man, this is hard because there's two. They have the same name because they were relatives and they split. There's La Cuccina del Garga, and I really like their food. I don't go there that often because it's in a neighborhood that I don't like to go to with my home because it's far away from my house, that kind of thing.

But to give you an idea, like I have a good friend who's a chef in Rome, and he and his wife came to visit, and they never have vacation time. And they, they've, like, they wrote me one day, and they were like, we have one of those, you know, those box things where you get like a night in a hotel and this and that, and you have to use it before it expires. Yeah, they had one of those. And so they had to do it. Like, it was going to expire. So, like, all of a sudden, they show up in Florence, no notice. And they're like, where should we go to eat? We want to eat with you. And I'm like, ah, you know, no pressure. Just a chef. And so I took them here and they loved it. Okay. And what I like about it is, is you get Florentine food, but you also get a twist on Florentine food. I'm not going to say it's perfect. Like, no place in this town is perfect that I've found. But the food has always been really good. The service is nice. The atmosphere is really, wacky because the father was an artist and so you've got like you almost feel like you're there's a couple of rooms in the restaurant where you feel like you're inside of a painting and i feel like if you're going to go to one of the places it's kind of like quintessential part of the history of Florence this is one of the places i would recommend okay oh tony it's been so great chatting with you um where can people find out more about you and find out more about my tours taste florence dot com that's

taste florence.com um and um i have a blog I never write on called Italiana. I think I wrote on there like seven years ago, but I do have a couple of articles on there. You put Ramo on your Instagram. What's your Instagram? Oh yeah, my Instagram is just Pace Florence. Thank you again

for dedicating so much time today. This was really fun to talk to you. Likewise. I don't know about you, but now I cannot stop thinking about cherry fridgers and food festival hopping. Are you headed to Florence scene? If so, you cannot

miss the Taze Florence Food Tour. Get 5% off with the code Postcard 18. And send me some food picks. I would love to see the foods that you're trying when you're in Italy or anywhere else in the world. And visit Postcardacadcom to see my photos from my Tase Florentz Tour. One more reminder about the podcast awards. If you like this podcast, please vote for the Postcard Academy in the Society and the People's Choice Categories. Thank you so much. That's all for Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use

so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.