Food and wine in Florence – part 2
If you missed it, read the first part of this article.
Oil and Cheese Sellers
I have to admit that sometimes it’s not easy to decide whether to include a place among the wine shops or the “oil and cheese sellers. What really counts is the spirit with which the establishment is managed, so if they sell mainly wine it’s a vinattiere and if they sell extra virgin olive oil, cheeses and some wine, but mainly if they prepare food-to-eat – sandwiches or what have you – it falls into the second category.
So, Pegna in Via dello Studio that has been in the same elegant sixteenth century building since 1860 is an Oliandolo :). Located practically behind the cathedral they sell not only Tuscan specialties, but also delicacies from around the world and they offer excellent prepared foods to take away.
Gastronomia Tassini on Borgo S.S. Apostoli between the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita and nestled among the old tower houses has a similar policy. Here you can find hot foods such as ribolita, pappa al pomodoro, and trippa, as well as cold cuts, cheeses and a myriad of Italian specialties.
Now I’m going to confuse you: the Old England Stores specialize in British goods. But the spirit of this blog is to talk about “Florentineness” and this store, founded by the Marcacci family in 1924 is still one of the best stocked and charming gourmet shops in the city. Tea, coffee, biscuits, whisky and Scottish salmon are just a few of the delicacies that are hard to resist once you go inside.
To get back to local – or at least Italian – products let’s backtrack towards the Uffizi and stop in Via Lambertesca. Here, a few years ago Alessandro Frassica a refined and fortunate Florentine gourmand set up shop as the “designer of the perfect sandwich”. Ino is the meeting point of the two guilds, the Oliandoli and the Vinattieri. Here you can some of the most sophisticated and genuine Italian foods: a fine selection of wines and fabulous sandwiches that are custom made!.
I will close this list of the top five Oliandoli with a historic shop that is famous throughout Italy: Procacci.
Leopoldo Procacci founded this food-store in 1885 and received a royal warrant from King Vittorio Emanuele III. It is famous for its truffle pâté sandwiches, and now, in the elegant Art Nouveau setting you can enjoy first course dishes and Antinori wines. Even though it is located on Via Tornabuoni – the Fifth Avenue of Florence – Procacci has not lost a bit of its original, comfortable and welcoming atmosphere.
Bakers
Panifico
Even though the name is anything but imaginative – Panificio means bread bakery – this old shop on Via della Spada turns out some of the best loaves in Florence, made according to the oldest recipes in town: the bakery has been there since 1876 thanks to the founding family, the Cherubinis.
Pane e Focacce is one of the most tempting bakeries in Florence. It first opened in 1925 next to the Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio. In addition to traditional Tuscan bread. you will find tasty little rolls baked with olive oil (strictly extra virgin), pan di ramerino – bread with rosemary, cakes and biscuits.
Panifio Materassi
This simple little bakery was opened by the Materassi family in 1925 and it still stands on a street known for restaurants and chair-menders – Via de’ Serragli in the Santo Spirito district. It’s a place where there is no time for too many cute details: they bake bread!
Focacceria Pugi
The Pugi family has been baking bread, focacce, and miniature pizzas since 1924. The original bakery is a little off the beaten track with respect to the city center, on the other side of the Viale de Amicis overpass on the way to the stadium, but now there are two more, one in Piazza San Marco and another in Via San Gallo. Remember, in the Florentine parlance, Pugi means focaccia!
Forno Becagli
I got my degree at the School of Economics of the Florence, behind the US Consulate General. This meant that for five days a week for five years I was fed by the Forno Becagli in Via Borgo Ognissanti.
I love this super tiny “can find everything” place. Great schiacciata all’olio, apple pastries and meringue kisses.
Pharmacies
And what do pharmacies have to do with anything?, I hear you ask. Easy. The of Guild of Physicians and Herbalists (Arte dei Medici e Speziali was one of the most important of the seven major guilds. In the fourteenth century, medical treatments were essentially based on herbs, plant extracts and spices. So, the spice sellers carried choice cooking ingredients such as ginger, mustard and saffron. The doctors often had their “offices” behind the spice shops where extraordinary sweet liqueurs and bitters were prepared and sold.
To get an idea of what it must have been like, the first stop should be the Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella on Via della Scala. This is not only one of the oldest pharmacies in Florence, but probably also in the world. It has been there since the thirteenth century – although the “official” founding dates from 1612. The apothecary jars are all from that period, while the furnishings proper are eighteenth century. It is truly enchanting, with the patina of time and the fragrance of Acqua di rose – rosewater and hundreds of medicinal herbs. There is honey from rare plants and some of the finest, historic Italian liqueurs: alkermes, liquore mediceo and the Elisir di Edimburgo bitters
Another of the most beautiful, historic pharmacies in the city – where Dante is said to have been a loyal patron (he was, as we mentioned a member of the Guild of Physicians and Herbalists), is the Farmacia Molteni in Via Calzaioli/Via Porta Rossa. It was established in the thirteenth century, but the furnishings are “new”, i.e. nineteenth century. Today it is a “normal” pharmacy.
Farmacia Pitti (in Piazza Pitti) is yet another, beautiful historic pharmacy: it was founded in the fifteenth century and was remodeled in the nineteenth.
Another of the oldest pharmacies is the sixteenth century Farmacia di SS Annuziata with its beautiful white vaulted ceiling and seventeenth century shelving. One of my favorites is the pharmacy in Piazza Santo Spirito – same name as the square – it’s a marvel of beauty with the black-and-white floor, the fifteenth century white ceiling and the white shelves with slender gilded columns that were built early in the twentieth. And finally, there is the Farmacia Canto alle Rondini on Via Pietrapiana founded in the fifteenth century. It still has an authentic neo-Gothic counter designed by Coppedè.
