Florence, Properly
Long dinners, golden hour aperitivo, Tuscan day trips, and the art of lingering well.
Florence has a way of slowing you down without asking permission.
The light shifts differently here. Lunch becomes aperitivo. Aperitivo becomes dinner. Dinner becomes another glass somewhere you hadn’t planned on stopping. A sandwich eaten standing by the river somehow becomes memorable. A walk turns into golden hour. Reservations matter less than lingering.
Somewhere between the wine bars, the Tuscan countryside, and the dinners that stretch long into the evening, you start to suspect the Italians might actually understand something the rest of us don’t.
This wasn’t a whirlwind trip. No aggressively color-coded itinerary. No sprinting between museums with blistered feet and a growing sense of resentment. Just a long weekend of eating, wandering, being, and very happily over-indulging.
So if you’re planning a few days, or lucky you, maybe a week in Florence anytime soon, here’s how I’d suggest doing it properly.
Slow Days, Long Walks
Florence rewards a slower pace. Not every moment needs to be optimized. Some of the best hours came from simply walking with nowhere specific to be. A morning coffee. A quiet street. A long loop across the river.
The kind of city where even getting lost feels aesthetically beneficial.
Panetteria e Stuzzicheria De Neri
The best sandwich I ate in Florence, and the one we kept talking about for days after, came wrapped in paper from De Neri. Simple ingredients, perfect bread, no unnecessary theatrics. The kind of food Italy consistently reminds you nobody else quite does the same.
Go early. The line forms quickly and for good reason. Take it down toward the river and eat it standing somewhere in the sunshine. This is not a sit-down lunch moment. It’s a Florence moment.
And before anyone asks: don’t bother comparing this to All’Antico Vinaio. If you care about my opinion, it was never in the running.
Giardino di Boboli
One of the best ways to disappear for a morning or afternoon.
Massive gardens, winding paths, hidden corners, sweeping views over Florence, and enough space to momentarily forget how many people are packed into the city center below. Bring snacks. Bring wine if you’re bold. Wander without urgency.
Less about checking something off and more about letting yourself drift.
Gelateria dei Neri
The best gelato in Florence. Yes, I said it. The affogato is every bit as good as Vivoli’s, minus the hour-long line wrapped around the block. Dangerously close to the sandwich shop above, which is either convenient or a problem depending on how you look at it.
A Few Shops Worth Wandering Into
Florence is best explored slowly, and that includes shopping. Not marathon luxury retail. Not sprinting through crowded designer stores with six shopping bags cutting off circulation. More the kind of places you accidentally spend forty minutes inside while claiming you’re “just looking.”
Dangerous behavior, really
Minimal, elevated, and impossibly chic. An independent boutique in the heart of the city carrying a beautifully curated assortment of clothing that immediately makes you want to become the sort of person who only wears structured neutrals exclusively and owns very good olive oil.
This one is for the men. A Tuscan knitwear and menswear brand founded in 1973, blending traditional craftsmanship with beautifully understated classics. Everything feels thoughtful, timeless, and deeply rooted.
Premium vintage and not-so-vintage luxury at surprisingly fair prices. The sort of place where you pull a perfect leather jacket off the rack, find an arguably new pair of Miu Miu flats on the shelf, and start mentally reorganizing your suitcase space.
Girly in the best possible way. Silk, lace, color, texture, all layered together with a distinctly Italian sense of glamour that feels playful rather than precious.
For Long Lunches
Florence understands lunch in a way America simply does not. Nobody is eating sadly at a desk. Wine appears casually. Pasta arrives slowly. The afternoon stretches on as intended.
Rustic with deeply Tuscan energy. A room filled with wooden chairs, brick walls, and Italian chatter bouncing around the tables. The pasta is simple and perfectly executed; the spaghetti al pomodoro earns every bit of its reputation.
Gustapanino
A different register entirely. Tucked into Santo Spirito, Gustapanino is the kind of place where you accidentally lose an hour or two midway through the day. Relaxed, neighborhood-feeling, slightly chaotic in the best way, with easy and unfussy pasta and tables that seem permanently occupied by people halfway through a bottle of wine.
Extra Credit, On the Next-Trip List
Trattoria Camillo - A multi-generational Florence institution. Old-world Tuscan classics done by people who’ve been doing them for decades.
Vini e Vecchi Sapori - Tiny, family-run, with a daily-changing chalkboard menu. The kind of place that gets whispered about more than written about.
When the Light Starts to Change
Florence may be at its best somewhere between aperitivo and dinner. The streets soften. Tables spill outward. One glass casually becomes two. Nobody appears particularly concerned with time.
A strong contender for the best cocktailing in Florence came from an unexpected source: Gucci Giardino 25. Yes, that Gucci.
Polished without feeling stiff, beautifully designed without tipping into gimmick. The Memoire di Negroni: violet-toned from butterfly pea powder, layered with yuzu sake and grapefruit bitters. Chi si ferma è perduto: tequila-forward and perfectly balanced by Italicus Rosolio Bergamot, Ancho Reyes Verde, mint, and lemon. Each elegant, citrusy, and dangerous in the way very good cocktails tend to be.
A place that could have relied on branding alone, but thankfully doesn’t.
A wine bar tucked into a quieter pocket of Florence, where the evenings feel slightly slower. Cozy and crowded inside in the best way. Conversations spilling into the street long after sunset outside. A “one quick glass” type of place that rarely stays that way.
Cosimo Rooftop Restaurant & Bar
Golden hour cocktails with Firenze stretched out in front of you. The martinis flirt aggressively with New York pricing territory. Somehow, the view still makes it feel spiritually justifiable. Worth it for the light alone.
Loggia Roof Bar at Hotel Palazzo Guadagni
The kind of rooftop you could walk right past if you didn’t know it was there. Nothing overly polished. Nothing trying too hard. Just spritzes, soft evening light, and a rooftop full of people enjoying themselves a little longer than planned.
Part record store, part bar, entirely the sort of place you hope to stumble into. Two floors, plenty of character, excellent people-watching, and one of my favorite nighttime Duomo views. Ideal before dinner. Mildly dangerous after dinner.
Florence After Dark
Dinner rarely starts early. Glasses rarely stay full for long. Somewhere around golden hour, the streets begin to hum differently, and suddenly everyone is outside beneath warm light. Once the sun has set, the feast must soon begin.
Il Santino → Il Santo Bevitore
This is the ideal Florence evening trajectory. Start at Il Santino during golden hour, when the crowd spills effortlessly into the street and wine glasses balance in hand while everyone pretends they’re only staying for one. Skin-contact pours. Controlled chaos.
Then wander next door to Il Santo Bevitore, where dinner stretches comfortably late. Thoughtful Italian cooking with enough edge to keep things interesting, but never so polished that it loses warmth. One of those rare restaurants equally suited for a date, a long dinner with friends, or accidentally ordering one bottle too many.
Florence can lean romantic, almost to the point of parody, and somehow La Giostra still works.
Candlelit tables, walls layered with history, excellent service, and pear ravioli that fully deserves its reputation.
As for the bistecca Fiorentina: arrive hungry and trust the process.
It is that good.
One of those places I found myself needing to return to this trip. This visit, downstairs in the cellar, reserve bottles linger across tables while grappa appears almost suspiciously generously poured.
The staff has that rare ability to make you feel less like a visitor and more like someone who’s been coming there for years. Always a dangerous quality in a restaurant.
One Proper Tuscan Day
One of the greatest luxuries of Florence is how quickly the city disappears once you leave it.
A blink outside the center and suddenly you’re surrounded by rolling hills, vineyards, olive groves, little towns perched impossibly on top of hills, and wineries that somehow all seem to have something meaningful to say
.Casa Emma
Rolling hills, rows of vines, a duck family wandering through the property, and a vineyard facing tasting patio to match.
Breakfast here included a glass of Chianti and a 100-year balsamic tasting, which felt like an entirely reasonable way to begin a Tuscan day
.Terre di Sovernaja
This was the one. The kind of place you continue talking about long after you’ve left.
A family-run winery just outside San Gimignano producing natural wines, olive oil, and saffron, all deeply reflective of the land around them. A rediscovered 120-year-old Vernaccia vineyard brought back to life and transformed into something entirely their own.
But more than the wine, it was the table.
A three-hour lunch cooked entirely by hand by Federico’s mother inside the family dining room. Red sauce, simple and perfect. Pork. Duck-fat potatoes. Saffron ice cream. The kind of home cooking that makes you briefly reconsider your entire life back home.
Federico poured throughout lunch while explaining how he’s shaping the next chapter of the winery. His father sat nearby with a quiet glass of riserva before heading back to work.
“Another splash?” Asked often. Answered every time.
You leave with a full belly, a full heart, and the quiet understanding that this is what Italy does best. The warmth. The table. The way strangers don’t stay strangers for very long.
Final Thoughts
Florence is not a city that rewards rushing. It rewards paying attention.
The meals I’ll think about for months: La Giostra’s Bistecca alla Fiorentina and pear ravioli, the long dinner at Il Santo Bevitore, the three-hour table at Terre di Sovernaja. The cocktail I’m still trying to reverse-engineer came from Gucci Giardino. The best view of the city came from Cosimo, martini in hand. And the hour I’ll actually miss most wasn’t a meal at all, it was the open street outside Il Santino and Enoteca Bellini, young Firenze locals splitting a bottle, or three, or four, glasses balanced on building crevices and car hoods, laughter spilling everywhere, gathering themselves before deploying into the night ahead.
Not something New York is ever going to fully recreate, no matter how good the wine bars get.
The Italians aren’t doing anything mysterious. They’re just refusing to be in a hurry about it.
Take the cue.
Cheers. xx