Description: This is arguably the best meal I have ever had in my life. Considering that this place is ranked among the top restaurants in all of Europe (they have the framed ranking on their wall) it is really not that expensive. The head chef/owner is quite a charater and personally comes to each table at least once throughout your dinner. He served as our somellier and spend at least 5 minutes explaining our wine selection to us, decanting it and the serving. The walls are covered with pictures of him and his satisfied clientele and includes at least a hundred pictures of him and celebrities who have dined at the restaurant.
Compimentary water and bread are not the standard here. They bring you a free glass of champagne as you sit down and a complimentary appetizer sampler platter that is a VERY generous portion. There will be one piece of each appetizer for each person (i.e. there were three of us so there were three of everything on the plate) The free appetizers consisted of caprese, bruschetta, marinated mushrooms, marinated peppers, stuffed zucchini, salami with some sort of fruit, crostini with pate and some sort of dumpling looking thing that appeared to contain pesto. Everything was very very good.
For an appetizer with got prosciutto with bufalo mozzarella. Everything was incredibly fresh and flavorful and tasted much better then what you can get in the states. For dinner I got tortelloni bolognese and veal scallopini with mushrooms. Both were excellent. My two friends both got pasta dishes as well that they raved about. For dessert we got a sampler platter that contained tiramisu, gelato and a cubed pineapple wedge with fresh strawberries. Again, all excellent.
The restaurant is relatively small so reservations are very important. We only made our a couple of days in advance for three people and they were able to squeeze us in but I wouldn't recommend just showing up at the door. The other thing is that the restaurant is fairly hard to find. It is down a small alley and the sign is very small. I recommend walking by it during the day before your reservation so that you are sure you know where it is. The night after we ate there we saw no less then three families wandering around in the street trying to find it. You could always tell people that were looking for it because there would be a family just wandering around the street in nice clothes looking at addresses so we pointed a few people in the right direction. Bring a map with you.
Going to Florence and missing out on eating here would be a huge mistake. For three glasses of champagne, a bottle of nice wine (about $40), the appetizer platter, the prosciutto y bufalo, three pasta dishes, veal scallopini and the desert platter our bill was about $140usd. VERY GOOD DEAL for dining at one of the worlds best restaurants. Make sure you stop by this place and take your picture with the owner!
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