The Divine Dish

Florence for Foodies, Nude and Food Walking Tour, Florence

Posted on Apr 18, 2012 under Archives, Italy | No Comment

I had been emailing Nat and Sam from the Florence for Foodies walking tour for about a month, so I was very happy to finally meet with both of them.  They started Florence for Foodies about two years ago and it has grown into the top rated walking tour of Florence.  I went on two tours with them, the Nude and Food and the Venus and Wine tour.  Both women are licensed guides, which in Florence means many hours of studying history and art and taking lots of tests to get a certificate enabling you to call yourself a guide.  I met with them the first day I arrived and they were nice enough to give me a private tour of Florence and let me know where to go for shopping and eating until I took their tours a few days later.  They really hooked me up and I made two new good friends.

The Nude and Food tour begins at the Accademia (sorry, no pics allowed in there) to view Michelangelo’s masterpiece David.  Sam gave us a great history of the artist and the sculpture, and we didn’t have to wait in the huge lines.  We walked straight in and right to the huge nude of David.  We spent about an hour at the museum and moved ahead to the food portion of the tour.

We headed to Bar Pasticceria amidst the open San Lorenzo market vendor stalls for a bite of traditional Florentine breakfast.

We enjoyed some cappuccinos and Italian coffees and samplings of muffins and cakes and good conversation among foodies from America and Britain.  Next stop was the Mercato Centrale, a must for any foodie visiting Florence, with stalls and stalls of all kinds of great food.

The inside market is huge with meats, cheeses and all kinds of other lovely things to eat on the ground floor and vegetables on the upper second floor.  We sampled a variety of great food here, including:

We started at the peanut and dried fruit stand and had a nice mixed sample of both.

Next we moved on to the Nerbone stall to try a staple of Florentine food – the lampredotto – a sandwich made out of cow stomach.  We had samples of both the shoulder and the stomach and both were good.

Next came a cheese tasting with various stages of aged Parmigiano Reggiano cheese – the good stuff.  Only cheese from a certain region (basically Parma to Reggio Emilio) can be official Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and it must have the official stamp on the outside of the cheese wheel.  Much more on that subject will be in my posts from the cheese factories in Parma, but here is what we sampled at the food market.

Sam gave us a history of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and then we sampled different ages of cheese – 1 year to 3 years aged and some including fennel and truffles.  My fave was the one with truffles.

If you aren’t planning to go to Parma, Reggio or Bologna on your Italy trip, I highly recommend buying your Parmigiano Reggiano at the food market.  Prices vary, but you can get a vacuum sealed kilo for around 15 euro.

We moved on to another butcher stall to taste some Parma ham and salami.

Here is what we sampled:

We also got time to walk through the market on our own to view the many stalls and buy products.  Here are some of the spots I visited:

After a short break we met up at Conti, a stall that sells pates, spreads, olive oil, vinegars and many other products.

Here we tasted different toppings for cheese as well as a very nice vinegar sampling.

We tasted everything from three year vinegar to 50 year vinegar, each got sweeter as it aged.  An outstanding tasting.

Next we moved on to a nice local wine shop where we tasted lots of wines.

After we were very tipsy we walked back to central Florence to taste some gelato at Perche No, the best place for gelato in Florence.  I visited several times during my stay in Florence and still dream about the gelato served here.

We sampled tons of gelato here.  Three large cups with three different flavors in each cup!

My fave was the pistachio, zabaione and chocolate mouse combo.

I also went on the Venus and Wine tour, sorry no pics allowed in the museums, which is a nice tour of the Uffizi highlights and some good wine.  Florence for Foodies also offers a ghost tour and private tours.  I highly recommend going on the Nude and Food tour right when you arrive so that you can get all the great info on restaurants from Nat and Sam and enjoy visiting them during the rest of your stay in Florence.  The Nude and Food tour runs 89 Euro and is well worth it, all of the folks on my tour agreed it was one of the highlights of their trip.  You can make reservations for tours at www.florenceforfoodies.com.