The Best Street Food in Florence, Italy! 🇮🇹 (DIY Florence Food Tour & Wine Window)

This is exactly my kind of window shopping. This thing's spicy as hell. My mouth is like refusing to swallow. When you do squeeze it, it does pop out the side. That's crazy. There you go. That was quite loud. We're Matteo and Mischa. We're currently traveling to all 20 regions of Italy on the Ultimate Italian Road Trip. In our previous Florence mini-series episode, we walked you through the streets of Florence and showed you what to expect if you're visiting during the Today, we are on the hunt for the best street food Florence has to offer. Oh, that looks so good. As we munch on a fiery panino at the world's most famous panini shop, stumble across a few delightful lesser-known treats. It really is like a cuddle in your mouth. Indulge on possibly the creamiest gelato you can find in Florence and try out a traditional but unusual Florentine street food delicacy. You essentially pulled out the intestine and placed it on top for me. With Italy being home to some of the most famous foods in the world, it is no surprise that you can try different specialities just by going from one city to the next, and Florence is no exception. The city is steeped in history, from the architecture and the arts to the deliciously unique gastronomy. As the list of ingredients, dishes, snacks, treats and sweets goes on forever, trying to understand the food culture in Italy can be pretty overwhelming. Just gonna overlook my fear of it, we're just gonna go for it. So it's best to be done in bite-sized chunks and with a glass of wine. And on that note, our first order of business for the day is to stock up on a tasty Tuscan red from a local Enoteca. Enoteca alla Sosta dei Papi, translated to the Pope's Stop. An Enoteca, or wine library in English, are fascinating little wine shops, focused more on small wine producers rather than large wineries. Being a center of knowledge and information about the different wines and vine growers of the local area, they offer tasting facilities together with wine by the glass, and also double as a restaurant, offering regional foods that pair with the wines. We can't start our food tour without an excellent bottle of red wine. So this place we've come to first is an Enoteca, where you can come and select the wine and they'll fill it up in a bottle for you. And of course, you can't really eat Italian food, which in Italy they just call food, without wine. So this should pair perfectly with all the things we eat today. And on days in the city, I downgraded my big cooler box from Viareggio to my little yellow one. Oh, we got napkins, we got water, we got cups, we got wine, and a bottle opener, and I think we're ready for the day. Preparation is key. Since one of the perks of being an adult is getting to decide what's for breakfast, and since I've recently been craving a massive Costco sheet cake with thick buttercream frosting, we're on our way to the central market to find some cake to start the day. And on the way to Mercato Centrale, you walk through this sea of leather It smells pretty good, actually. I don't know if I'm weird, but I really like the smell of leather. If you wanted to come do some leather shopping, right outside Mercato Centrale, you have almost too many options. It's a little overwhelming, but yeah, you're definitely not short of leather in any form. So if you don't come to Mercato Centrale in the morning, you'll notice that, like, if you come in the afternoon, all these stands here are closed on the bottom level, because it's a morning market where they sell, like, fruits and vegetables and produce and a bunch of things that people come and, like, buy to take home. But yeah, so, like, roughly around noon or one, they tend to shut down, but the upstairs is still open where there is a massive food hall, and that's where we're headed. We are at Mercato Centrale, which is the central market here in Florence. We came here for a schiacciata alla fiorentina. If you've heard the word schiacciata before, it's because it is the typical Tuscan panini bread, the one that you get at Palantico Venial. This cannot be confused with that, because this is a soft, spongy cake. You also get schiacciata aluva, which is a sweet dessert. They add, I'd say sweet, but it's more of a grape-like bread, but it's a dessert. It's very hard to explain, you have to kind of taste it. But we've been wanting to try this particular dessert, and so now we found it here. It's usually more popular around carnival time, which is like the beginning of next year, beginning of January, February. However, today is as good a day as any to try. It's literally a creamy sponge cake, but it's quite sweet. I just can't taste it much because I have a sinus problem. I really can't. I can taste it sweet, but I can't taste its flavor. Okay, so a slight oversight today. Mateo is a little bit stuffy. We've just realized that that means his taste buds won't really be that sharp. I might be doing the heavy lifting today, but that's okay, because I like to eat. So, sorry baby, but this looks so good. We've been really wanting to try this. So yeah, it looks very spongy. It looks like there's some cream in there, maybe a custard. Wow, that's so light. It's so weird. I felt like when I put the spoon into it, it felt kind of dense, but then when I was chewing it, it almost like disappeared right away. I don't know how to explain it. It's like super fluffy. It almost like dissolves in your mouth right away. Mateo has chimed in now. Apparently he could taste that there was custard in it, so all hope is not lost for today. That's delicious. How does it compare to your American cake craving? I mean does it satisfy the American cake craving? No. I'm definitely one of those people who loves like thick buttercream frosting cakes from Costco that like you get a heat kick of it, but you know in Italy they just do things healthier and probably a little more organic. This is delicious though. Honestly, like if you want something nice for breakfast with coffee, I think this would be perfect. It's like the perfect amount of sweetness and also very light. Okay, so we got our little cake from Mercato Centrale and there's a lot to eat and drink in there. We're gonna actually be doing another video just on what there is inside there, so I promise you'll get to see more of it, but for now we're back on the streets to get some more food. Where are you going? What do you want? Which one? Which is the best? The best one. It's a top of cheese. Okay. Okay, you want to do it? I'll do it. We walk past this place a lot. This is exactly my kind of window shopping. We figured this was the perfect place to get a little coccolo. So they're basically fried dough balls and coccolo in English means cuddles because it's a comfort food, which I think is rather cute because when you eat it, maybe it just feels like a cuddle because it's so yummy and heartwarming. The place Il Coccolo that we were trying to go to before does the sweet ones where you can fill it with Nutella and things like that. Stop number one on the tour, Il Coccolo, seems to be closed. We did google it and it did say it was temporarily closed right now. We just thought we'd come by and give it a try, but we love this place because you can get coccolo, which is a traditional Florence street food, but you can put it on these like pipes and have it stuffed with Nutella or cream or like a variety of different things and it pumps itself into the coccolo. So we were really hoping that google was wrong and that it would be open, but alas, it is not. So we will be having coccolo somewhere else. If you're in Florence and you want to see if this place is open, it's really good. Hopefully it actually does reopen. So if you're in Florence and you want to check this place out, I hope it's open when you're here because it's delicious, but we won't be having any today. No coccolo. Let's continue the journey. So for the most part they're savory, but at Il Coccolo they're sweet, but now... Grazie mille. Oh that looks so good. We've gotten our coccoli. These are filled with prosciutto crudo, which is raw ham and stracchino cheese, which is a soft cheese similar to mozzarella. It doesn't really get a rind, it just gets soft and the coccoli itself is just nice and crunchy, nice and fried. Smells so good. It really is like a cuddle in your mouth, if that makes any sense. The stracchino cheese is very moist. When you squish it, the cheese almost becomes like a spread. That's how soft it is. You do commonly get this at a peritivo. A lot of the times the coccoli will come on the plate with the salamis and the cheeses, but at some of these stalls you can actually get it stuffed because it's easier to eat on the go rather than putting it together yourself. It's so good. My taste buds are still there. Nice. To be honest, I've never had stracchino either. I understand what you mean by now it's a spread, it's like it's really really young cheese that isn't developed into like a more stringy cheese. So when you do squeeze it, it does pop out the side. However, it's very creamy. The ham's salted, so it's very salty ham, cheese, dough, pizza, little ball. I mean deep fried. We love everything deep fried, if you haven't picked that up at home. Taste buds are half back. With my taste buds coming and going as often as the ruling party in Italy, it was time to try the dish we were definitely not looking forward to, Lampredotto. But as they say, when in Florence. Lampredotto is a trap dish and a speciality of Florence. It is the fourth and final stomach of a cow, slow cooked in a vegetable broth seasoned with herbs, until it has the texture of tender roast beef. Traditionally served on a crunchy crumbly bun called a foglia, which means leaf in English, as its shape resembles a leaf. It is dunked in the trap broth just long enough to soak up the flavors, but not make it soggy. It is then topped with salt, pepper and a spicy salsa verde sauce. Created around the 15th century as poor food and sold by street vendors on carts, Lampredotto came about as a substitute to a wealthy noble's dish that had a similar name. Today this tradition has been partly continued as you can still find Lampredottai on the streets of Florence, which are the small kiosks that sell Lampredotto. So we've gotten the Lampredotto. If you guys saw our Palermo street food video, you know we can get a little squirmy with animal intestine, but when we're in a city and it's known from certain foods, we have to try it. I feel like maybe we've grown a bit since the Palermo video, so we'll see. Okay, I don't think I got too much meat in that bite, but I did get the spices and they're actually, the spices taste nice. Now we'll see. I feel like the meat's now there, so we're about to actually find out. Maybe I'll start here. Oh, big bites. So squishy. It is very squishy. Hang on, I feel like the taste actually isn't getting me. In Palermo, the taste really got me. This one actually does, it does just taste kind of like a stew. Would you order it again? Oh no. You need a what? I'm in that situation again. My mouth is like refusing to swallow because I know what it is. I'm just chewing. That did not help. Are you done? Thoughts? Oh, got it down. I got it down. Very squishy, like tender, almost like when you bite into a steak or something and there's like fattiness to it, it almost just tastes like the fatty part. Not exactly satisfying to eat, totally, but the spice is really nice. I actually did like the green spice. Bread is soft, but I'm happy we tried it. I don't know if this will be a normal dish for me, but yeah, you gotta try it if you're here. Let's see what you think. Thank you for that. You essentially pulled out the intestine and placed it on top for me. There we go. I was just trying to help you out. I was really trying to make sure you got a good bite. I don't even get like a good douse of flavor. I just get like, hey, here's some stomach. So as we've already established, I cannot taste and textures drive me insane. So this is like a double whammy, like only texture, no taste and it's not meat. But did they say it's slow cooked roast beef? So you know what? YOLO. I can't bite your piece. Why did you put it on top? I'm sorry. It really gives you the effect though. Go ahead. Okay. I'm getting the similarity to roast beef, even though I like have a slight flavor of like the saltiness, a lot less aggressive than the food in Palermo. It is soft, it is chewy and I haven't even taken a bite of the bread yet. So if I could get through the meat before I actually got to the bread. Hey, we've, I've come a long way. I'm so proud of you. That's really saying something. It's not bad. Really? You like it? You did better than me. It has a lot of flavor. Whereas when you ate the other stuff, the flavor couldn't come through because I could not get past how it felt in my mouth. When that fat from the intestine exploded or the spleen and lung and esophagus kind of, I just couldn't, just my mouth couldn't do it. However, this is not bad. I'm actually wildly impressed. I expected it to be a lot worse. I mean, I don't know if I'd order it on the reg, but I'll give it another try. So we're growing. I'm impressed. I expected a lot worse. I kind of like it. So excuse my long Italian pronunciations, but we came to this specific store called Trepaio del Porcellino. It's located in Piazza del Mercato Nuovo and this market is famous because 500 years ago when the Medici were busy developing the city, they literally built this market just to be a market. It looks way too over the top to be a market, but it's been a market ever since five centuries ago. And he's been operating here since over a hundred years ago. He's famous in Florence for his lampredotto and his trout. He's called Trepaio del Porcellino because Porcellino is the pig and the pig is located in this piazza. It's known as the bronze boar in English. Super cool story. The boar was crafted a couple hundred years ago and it actually is not the original like most of the statues in Florence. The original is located in a museum across the river. However, this boar is here to bring luck to anybody who rubs its nose, puts the coin inside its mouth and if it drops through the grate, your luck will come true. If it does not drop through the grate, try again until it drops through the grate. That's the story. Our wine that we got earlier is actually pairing really well with our lampredotto. So hey, go find a little Inoteca, a little wine shop, come get a lampredotto, give it a try. You're not going to find it anywhere else. You know, if I haven't stressed it enough, I was wildly impressed by that lampredotto. I expected it to be more strange for us westerners out there. I mean, I don't know if I count as a westerner but coming from all the way the most like southern point of Africa, but do I count as a westerner? I don't know, you decide that. Just call me a southern westerner. Now my stomach is full of Since I ate the majority of our intestine sandwich, Michelle needs to get some food in her. Sorry man. Of course, you hit my bicycle. But Michelle needs to get some food in her. We're going to get a little panino from the most popular spot here in Florence. A little panino. That people think are touristic but it's actually started out as a little family-run sandwich shop just because it became international does not make it touristy. And at one point it was the most reviewed cage on TripAdvisor. 2014. In 2014 now it's what like the third most reviewed restaurant on TripAdvisor? Yeah. So it has a good reputation for a very good reason. That's right. Ow. The problem with this place though is that you're never not gonna find the One time we went and there was no line. None of the four locations are all right across from each other. None of them had a line and it was very confusing and we thought the world had ended. But alas, we're back to reality. How are we going to choose a line? Oh look at the dog. We're in a line. I'm gonna open a beer. Oh there it is. It's like giving birth. A little malt baby. A little yeast non-filtered baby. If you've learned anything about me on this journey, it's that I don't come unprepared for anything. He's everything except prepared. Everything except prepared. Wait that's the wrong way to say that. Always prepared, always ready. Sardinian beer in Florence. Okay look, just to set the record straight, if anybody tells you that Al Antico Vinaio is a touristy place, a tourist trap, they are wrong. You tell me what place you'll find in Italy that gives you a panino for this size with that many ingredients and for eight euros. These guys do not compromise on size, quality, quantity of ingredients, price. The shop's been running here since 2006 and just because it became international still makes it delicious. As per mentioned in our Rome video, these sandwiches are so large that we always buy one and share it because for eight bucks, look at this. Like my head it's about the same size, Mishu's head it's a little bit bigger, but yes very impressive sandwiches. They now have locations opened up in Rome, Milan, New York. Today we got the panino called Inferno and yes it is actually named after the movie with Tom Hanks. This one has spicy pork cream with pork, spicy eggplant and rocket, which in America we call it rucola. Come on, it's like two inches of wholesale goodness right there. By wholesale I mean natural ingredients from the local farmer's market, this is by no means sponsored by Al Antico Vinaio. Earlier I said that that cake that we had in Mercato Centrale was schiacciata alla florentina, that was a cake. The schiacciata bread is this one, it is a hard crusted bread that's baked for a little bit longer than normal breads with less water from my understanding, don't quote me on that, I'm not a baker nor have I ever made bread, I wasn't one of those guys in lockdown making some loaves of bread. Come here babies you want some? There you go. But the schiacciata is a famous florentine bread and it's salted, it adds all the flavor to the bun and it allows the ingredients to soak up into the bread without going through the other side, without making the sandwich soggy. So it's special, some may say. Normally I'm not huge on pork, I love bacon, but normally I'm not huge on pork in general but it smells so good. If you haven't noticed from Michelle so far, she's pretty fussy for a street food vlogger. Okay to be fair I'm actually not, there's like maybe five things I don't eat, it just so happens that those five things tend to be in the street food videos. Okay and back, back here Steve. Okay I'm gonna go. Your little mouth didn't even take a big enough bite. I know, it's very good. The pork is really well seasoned, there's a lot of black pepper in here. I saw when he was carving it that like the rind like it it looked like it was seasoned when he was cutting it and now I can definitely tell because I can taste the black pepper, tastes very salty. The bread is a little bit hard and I said in our Rome episode, normally with Antico the thing that gets me is this schiacciata is very hard so it almost like hurts to eat, it almost cuts my mouth. In Rome it was actually very soft here, it's just, I don't know, it's tougher, it does it does feel a lot harder on top. This could be because you waited 20 minutes to bite in. It could be because we waited 20 minutes to bite into it. It is very nice though. It's a cold eat. It's gotten cold. I do think though I prefer the, I prefer the favolosa. We got the favolosa at the Antico in Rome and while this is delicious, I actually prefer the la favolosa. Your turn. You know the first time my wife said it, I didn't really believe her because when we had our panino in Rome, it was soft and like delicate. She's totally right, the one in Florence is more hard. I don't know what's to do with it, maybe it's because she spent 20 minutes explaining what the sandwich that she was. That was you. It's harder. I can taste the spice so that's, we are winning. Geez this thing's spicy as anything. I like it though. Blimey Richardson that's spicy. I'm gonna have to agree with my wife on this one. I prefer the la favolosa more but this does taste good. It's spicy as anything. I can feel the back of my throat burning but yeah if you like spicy things, you like a little bit of inferno from Dan Brown, a little bit of Da Vinci code, then give this one a try. If you're in Florence, get one every day. I mean who's counting? Nobody's gonna shame you for it. After taking our taste buds through what felt like all nine circles of Dante's Inferno, this thing's spicy as hell, we needed to put out the fire with something cold. So we strolled our way over to a little gelateria that sits in an alleyway in the shadow of Florence's mighty cathedral. Today we are at La Strega. It is an artisanal, I think in English it's artisanal, gelato maker. And we got La Strega Nocciola which is hazelnut made by them, like their signature gelato. We also got Lavanda which is lavender. I've never had lavender, neither has she. And we also got a flavor called crema Buontalenti. Buontalenti is the name, the surname of the man who is actually known for creating gelato here in Florence. However, I have to dispute this claim because Sicily is also known as the place that made gelato. No matter who you ask, they'll all say something different. However, officially Florence is known as the home place of gelato. A man named Bernardo Buontalenti mixed together cream, eggs, sweet wine, sugar and water to create this flavor that he has here. That was known as the first gelato which was in the 1600s if I'm not mistaken. By the looks of it, the lavender, oh wait they're different colors. The lavender and the Buontalenti which is like a cream, are different flavors, different colors. This might be the lavender. I can taste that through my illnesses. Whoa the lavender tastes like lavender. I've never had lavender. That's good. Imagine the smell of lavender. Now put it on your tongue. That's what lavender tastes like. Now for the crema Buontalenti. You can see it's a bit more yellow because it has eggs and sweet wine from what the original ingredient has. I don't know if they still use sweet wine. Let's see. That one tastes like eggs. Not in a bad way. Like you think eggs in a gelato is like a bit weird but it's not. It actually tastes, it has a hint of egg but in a sweet way. That's a very weird one to explain. You have to come and try this one if you're sitting in Florence. That tastes like eggs. I don't know how can you make ice cream eggs taste good, sound good. That's crazy. That is crazy. But we shall have the hazelnut. Nocciola. Since everybody's been asking me to do some Italian lessons. Nocciola is hazelnut in Italian. You'll never guess what pistachio is. Pistachio in English is pistachio. There's that after kick. How do they get, actually I do know how, I've googled it. Gelato differs from normal ice cream in that they use two-thirds less butter fat or fat if you choose, less air, they churn it slower so that less ice crystals form if that makes sense. The crystals become a lot smaller which makes the gelato a lot smoother. Wow, their signature flavor, La Strega Nocciola, is actually it's super hazelnutty. It just tastes like they cream down a hazelnut. Artisanal gelato, the reason they keep it in the canisters as well is because they're using all natural ingredients. They're really not using preservatives which is why they have to keep it in the canisters. And you really really can taste the difference. Like here in Italy and more gelato you eat, you'll be able to tell the difference when you're coming to these places and then you go back to places that aren't artisanal. I feel like that sounds really snobby but like it's true. Delicious. Okay, with very very very full bellies, we still have one stop left for the evening and I'm very excited about it. Go Stanley. Oh look guys, I think you're rude. I was pulling down. You don't pull down, you go sideways. Your rookie move is only ring it once. I feel like that looks like the Shire. Oh wait, we didn't decide what we wanted. I don't know, whatever. Two glasses of red. You never tried, I've never tried the orange one. You weren't too impressed. See, they told you no. We'll do a glass of red and a glass of orange just because I feel like I need to know. Okay, do that. If I ring it again, is that rude? No, just keep ringing it. Oh my god, I'm so bad at ringing this thing. I think I'm just too scared to make a noise. What time is your reservation? What's the time now? The city's very small, I told you. You walked all the way down the street. Very forward of them, they take card. For some reason I was thinking they'd have the bottles here and they would pour to make it more efficient. I see these. There we go, there we go, you got it. Ask for another plastic cup. So our final stop of the evening is at Bube, which is one of the wine windows in Florence and now probably the most famous wine window in Florence because Stanley Tucci did come to this particular one in his series, but initially they started as a way for the nobles to sell wine from their homes straight to the people and cutting out the middleman to like avoid taxes and then they became super convenient when the black flag happened and then again in COVID now in our modern times also super helpful to help limit the spread of the disease. There's actually quite a long line, I was quite surprised to see the line here. There's only a menu of about five options for you to get. It's like a red, a white, a rosé, an orange and I think a prosecco if I'm not mistaken. So we got a glass of red. Everyone's been talking about this orange wine, I have no idea what it is but a few of our friends have mentioned it and they said that they, a lot of them said that they don't really like it. I'm not sure why but I was like, you know what, we're gonna try it because I just want to know what this tastes like, I want to know what everyone's talking about. So that's what we got, standard red which tastes delish but this is the one I'm most, I'm holding it wrong, I should be holding it by the stem but let's see. Oh okay, I see what everyone means. Yeah, everyone was kind of explaining it in a weird way like it's like the orange wine is like flat. I didn't know what that meant and now I do. It almost tastes like, it almost tastes like a flat orange soda but like alcoholic orange soda that has absolutely no fizz. I might, I don't know how they make this but I agree now with the consensus that it's great. The red wine is very nice, that is interesting. Yeah, that's pretty. It tastes like flat orange soda. It's expensive, it doesn't do anything. It tastes like a white wine that was given orange flavor. It's confused, it's a confused child. Is that wine? It's white wine. A white wine with orange things. Yeah this was, I just wanted to know what that was all about. Now we know, now we know. We made some friends in line. This is Toby and Selena. They warned us about the orange wine but I just, I had to try it. So cheers! I missed you. There we go.