Our second full day in Florence involved art and crowds, usually at the same time. We visited the Uffizi galleries in the morning and the Accademia (which houses Michelangelo’s David) in the afternoon. It was quite a nightmare getting into the latter (though well worth it once inside). But I digress: this is about our lunch, which was eaten in between those visits at another very popular tourist destination in Florence: Il Mercato Centrale. It is located in the historic center, within easy walking distance from most of the sights you are likely to be visiting. Well, in late June the walk was made less easy by the heat, but the market itself is indoors once you get there—walking through rows of covered outdoor stalls selling various knick knacks—and reasonably well cooled. There are two levels. The ground floor is where the market proper is along with a few food counters. The main food section is upstairs and it was a zoo when we visited (and I assume this is usually the case in high tourist season). Accordingly, we ate downstairs instead, everything we wanted to eat being available there. What did we want to eat? Read on.

Most of the ground floor, as I said, is taken up by the market proper, with huge sections for fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood and also other provisions. Mixed in among them are more than a few food counters. One of our ports of call was in fact the counter right at the front entrance of the mercato: Bambi. Their specialty is lampredotto and other offal and meats, available as plates or in sandwiches (they have a counter in the food hall upstairs as well). Lampredotto is what I was most looking forward to eating. You might think we’d eaten enough offal in Rome to last us a while, but this classic Florentine preparation of stewed, chopped and seasoned cow stomach (the fourth compartment, to be exact) was not something I was going to pass up. Accodingly, we got a lampredotto sandwich from Bambi. And to be safe, we also got a sandwich with trippa alla Fiorentina, which features tripe stewed with tomato sauce. The latter was very tasty but the former was just excellent.

The boys wanted more pizza and we got them some from L’Antico Forno. A couple of slices of pizza al trancio (or large rectangular slices) topped with tomato and mozzarella, and one big slice of schiacciata (pressed flatbread), sliced and stuffed with prosciutto and mozzarella. They were very pleased with both. We ate all our food at a small table alongside Bambi (and Bambi has a counter with a few stools as well if you’re eating just their food).

Having eaten, we shopped a little bit—I could not resist buying mangoes from some Bangladeshi vendors in the green market—and went back upstairs for some cold treats for the boys. We then fucked off to the Accademia, where we had an interminable wait in the sun despite having purchased timed entry tickets. But enough of that.

Here is a look at the food sections of Mercato Centrale. The gallery begins with the things we actually ate downstairs and then gives you a look at the very crowded food hall upstairs. That food hall, as you will see, has a great variety of foods on offer. Bambi has another stall up there and there are many places to get pizza as well. In addition, you can find burgers (beef and vegetarian/vegan), barbecue, Chinese dumplings, Cuban food, seafood, quiche, sandwiches, cheese, gelato etc. etc. It would be very nice I’m sure when not as crowded.

Oh yes, everything we ate was very attractively priced at 5 euros or so per item. It was all very tasty and there was a lot more there I would have liked to try. That said, the next day we visited a much smaller—and calmer—neighbourhood market a few minutes walk from our flat and liked it a lot too. I’ll be posting a look at that market as well as at the market proper at Mercato Centrale in the weeks ahead. My next post from Florence, however, will be of another formal restaurant meal. Maybe this weekend.