Top Foods to Try in Florence, Italy | Florence Food Tour

Italy is known for its unbelievable food scene, with Florence being a city packed with delicious cuisine. In this food tour, we'll cover some of the best foods you need to try when you visit Florence. To start our food tour, we're heading to one of Florence's top-rated restaurants, Trattoria Zaza. Besides being known for its amazing food, it's also infamous for its difficulty getting a table for dinner without reservations. We're in Trattoria Zaza. This is a family-owned restaurant in Florence that's been around for around 40 years now. And this place actually wasn't on our radar, but we consistently keep seeing lines around the block to get into this place in the evening, so we knew that we had to check it out. So we're here pretty much just when it opened at 11 a.m., and we think it's the perfect time because it's pretty empty in here. And this place is really extensive and really kind of eclectic on the inside. Each of the different rooms seems to have a different theme associated with it, and there's tons of artwork around. So our plates just arrived, and this looks absolutely incredible. So if you can't tell, I got the truffle gnocchi, and it looks like there's freshly shaved truffle on top. So I am really excited to dive into this. Going in with my first bite here. I took the tiniest bite, and that is so incredibly rich. I know we say this a lot, but it genuinely just completely melted in my mouth, which is definitely different than the pasta that I'm used to. The gnocchi that I've had in the U.S. is still delicious but incredibly chewy, and this is just so pillowy, potatoey, and doughy that it just completely blends into the cream sauce. This might be one of my favorite eats yet. And the truffle sauce is so incredibly powerful. I'm actually very surprised how much it's coming through here. Oh my gosh, that's good. So what I ordered is a fried chicken Florentine. So I'm not exactly sure what makes this Florentine. It said it came with French fries, but they look to be more like potato rounds that are deep fried. I've already pre-drizzled it with lemon, and while it looks like a pretty monochrome meal, I bet you it's gonna be pretty good. So I can't wait to dive in. I'm gonna go for my first chicken bite here. All right, here goes. It's a very soft and tender fried chicken. I feel like a lot of fried chickens back home in the States are very flaky, oily, and this is almost like the softness you get from a baked chicken, but with a nice thick skin on it. I'm gonna go for one of the potatoes here now, too. It's almost more like a potato pancake than a French fry. You know, with that hint of lemon on there. That is so refreshing. Normally, I feel like French fries are really heavy, and that might be the lightest French fry I've ever had. That's really good. Our next stop on the food tour takes us to one of the area's best-known sweet spots to pick up one of Florence's highest-rated desserts. We stopped by Pompey's to pick up one of their world-famous tiramisu. So we just picked up some tiramisu from Pompey. That seems to be the place to get it in Florence, and this is definitely a classic thing to get in Italy. We've seen many shops selling tiramisu, so we're really excited to dive in. And when he handed it over to us, he actually put fresh chocolate shavings on top. Looks pretty good, and they actually gave us a pretty decent portion. This was like 5 euros, I think. So I'd say that's a pretty decent amount of tiramisu for that price. So let's dive in. All right, so going in for the first bite here, they give us these cute little mini spatulas. And I'm gonna go for a pretty deep bite to get all the layers. Looks great. Wow, that cream on top is so light and fluffy. And you're really hit with a punch of espresso at the end. That seems to be the the lowest layer on there. That is really incredible. That's good. I wish we had some mocha gelati to go along with this. I think that'd be perfect. So the craziest thing happened on our way to get this tiramisu. We were standing in the plaza over by the Duomo, and all of a sudden someone taps you on the shoulder and goes, Michael, turns out it's an old co-worker of mine that I used to work very, very closely with. What are the odds? Here we are running around the world, and we ran into an old friend. It's moments like that that make life so sweet, almost sweeter than this amazing tiramisu. No trip to Florence is complete without ordering a glass of wine from one of the city's famous wine windows. We're headed to a tiny spot near the Duomo to try this classic Florence oddity. So we just got a glass of wine from one of Florence's famous wine windows. These were actually famous during the plague, and they've hit a new resurgence. And they're also really fun. You pretty much just ring a bell, tell them what you want. I just ordered a red wine. They just had red, white, and a couple of other options. But we're really excited to try this. And this is actually our first wine since we've been in Italy, so we're even more excited. So I'll give it a taste here. I am no sommelier, but I do love my red wine. That's amazing. And it's even more fun when you think about the fact that these have been around for hundreds of years, and we can still enjoy them today. So cheers to all those that I've enjoyed throughout the years. So one more thing is Courtney and I are making our way through this wine. I don't know if there's something about drinking it in Italy, but this is probably one of the best, if not the best, red wines we've ever had. And like Courtney said, we're not wine experts, but I can tell this tastes good versus some other two-buck chuck that I've had that doesn't taste nearly as robust. Best wine we've ever had, literally, from a hole in the wall. God love Florence. Courtney, I know sponsors keep us on the road, but it's not like a great product a sponsor is just going to fall out of the sky. Ah, oh wait, it is. These are our own packing cubes from our own packing cube company. With Courtney's help, we started our own travel gear company, and these are some of the packing cubes we sell. As you can tell, they're designed to make organizing your life on the road incredibly easy. You never have to worry about your family forgetting outfits with these days of the week packing cubes. They're really well made. They're really cute. Thanks, Courtney. We'll link our store in the description box below. Check it out if you're interested. If not, let's jump back to the video. To further satisfy our sweet tooth, our next spot takes us to one of the highest rated gelaterias in Florence, and that's Grom. So we are standing outside the Duomo right now. We just picked up some gelato from Grom. We tried this gelato actually back in Rome, and it was our favorite gelato we have, so we were so excited to see it here in Florence. It's melting pretty quick. We can't think of a better spot to eat it than right outside of the Duomo here in Florence. We have a pretty magnificent view behind us, so I'm excited to have the first bites here. One thing we've heard is if you get gelato from the actual metal tins, it's a higher quality than the gelato you might see in plastic tins in storefronts. This is melting pretty quick. I gotta dive in. I can't even lick it fast enough. All right, this is messy. Here goes nothing. That is such a rich coffee flavor, and the cream really shines through there. Holy cow, it's almost like you're eating an iced coffee and delicious creamy texture. I think it's way creamier than ice cream we've had in the United States. So if you're looking for a great coffee treat, Grom gelato, you've got to check it out. Delicious. That's so good. And since it's pretty much illegal to leave Florence without trying some pizza, we stopped to pick up a few pizza pies from a spot just outside the Duomo from the man himself, Mr. Pizza. So we just picked up some takeaway pizzas from the restaurant Mr. Pizza. This isn't our first time getting Mr. Pizza. We actually got a couple takeaway pizzas from them a few days ago, and they were amazing. This time we went back and they were running a two-for-one special, so these were actually half-off pizzas, which is amazing. And I'm really excited to walk you through what we have. So this first one, we have a pretty classic tomato mozzarella pizza, but they put a gorgonzola cheese on there. This other one is a super veggie pizza, so they have arugula, zucchini, eggplant on there, and I can't wait to dive into these. They have a few different crust options while you're there. We don't want just the classic, but they do have sourdough, extra crispy, and even gluten-free crust available if you want. But this classic looks like a perfect thin crust slice. It's probably one of the best slices of pizza I've had. The cheese is just so powerful, and I feel like in the States, the sauce is what the pizza is all about. In this one, it feels like it's the freshness of the bread and the cheese. It's just an amazing slice of pizza. Going for a bite of super veggie now. That is a lot of arugula. It adds such a freshness to the pizza. With a name like Mr. Pizza, we weren't sure if we were going to get a classic Italian pizza. But with pizza this good, there's no way you could get it in the States. This is such a unique Italian pizza. And Mr. Pizza, if you're watching, thank you for your amazing pizzas. Our next stop on the food tour, we're heading to Florence's Mercato Central, or the city's central market. While the first floor of this 19th century glass and iron building is a traditional farmer's market, the upper floor boasts some great restaurants and foods to try. So the next stop on our food tour is taking us to Florence's Mercato Central. This is the central market where you can get just about all food under the sun. We're sitting on the second floor right now, which is more prepared food. And there's tons of people selling all sorts of things savory and sweet, and it looks amazing to get a bite to eat. Since it's early in the morning, we opted just for a chocolate croissant, which seems like a great way to start our morning in Florence. So I'm going to dive into this right now. It looks pretty darn fresh. Really pillowy. A nice sweetness to it without being overly sweet. I will say it's not warm, and not trying to say that Trader Joe's chocolate croissants are the gold standard, but there's just something nice about a warm, fresh croissant. But I think from a flavor perspective, this one's definitely a great croissant. The next item we got is a sandwich. This is made of focaccia bread, and then it also has caprese toppings on it. So we have tomato, mozzarella, and pink lettuce. And man, this looks absolutely amazing. And they even heated it up for us. So really excited to try this. And we have a day of museum hopping ahead of us, so we definitely want to fill our bellies a little bit with this. That tomato on there is so incredibly fresh. You can definitely tell it probably came from one of the stalls right underneath us in the market. And then the focaccia bread, it looks like they drizzled in olive oil. And man, that is absolutely incredible. I love focaccia bread. It's pretty much my favorite, so I am in heaven right now. So we thought we hit the last stop on our food tour, but it turns out there was one more we had to try. This is Neri Gelato. And we have a friend that lives in Florence who basically told us that was the number two. And this is by far the number one gelato spot to try. So we had to scurry back out and get it. It's a little hot still, so Courtney's already pre-licked the edges to make sure it's not melting. So I've not tried this yet. But I can't think of a prettier spot to try this gelato than this beautiful piazza with the church behind me. So I'm excited to dive into this. We ordered coffee and Nutella, so we hope it's a pretty good pair together. It looks pretty pretty. So we'll see if it tastes pretty good as well. We'll go for the first bite here. Holy cow. That's straight Nutella. It is incredibly rich. I kind of thought it would be like one of those things where you kind of get the taste of Nutella. Tastes like if you were just your spoon right in the jar of Nutella, but with that creaminess and the coolness of gelato. And you eat it right on the seam with the coffee. Mmm. It actually pairs really well. Well, I don't know if it beats Graham. It's definitely at least in the same league as Graham. They're both amazing gelatos. I might put Graham a tiny bit above this one. But Neri Gelato, if you like gelato, you've got to check it out. So that's our food tour. Be sure to check out our other videos of Florence, Italy, and all over the world. If you can, please drop us a like and consider subscribing to our channel as well. Thanks, and we'll see you in the next one. Ciao.