Taste Florence- Trattoria Mario

When you come to visit Italy and are looking for restaurants, people used to read guidebooks and plan their eating and make reservations. Now it’s more often FB or Instagram mentions which make you want to visit a place. When I moved to Italy, there was no internet, just the guidebooks. I tended to ask around, normally at the newsstands for a local tip of the best food for the best price.

“Dove si mangia bene e spende poco?” Where can you eat well for a good price? Since we started going there, the euro has now replaces the lira, prices are higher, but the quality hasn’t changed. Most people used to go home for lunch or if they couldn’t they would find a place that served food like your mom made and have great prices. You will find tourists, students and bankers all together. This is a place for everyone. Nothing fancy. Just real good homestyle cooking. If you love wine, they have a wonderful wine cantina with some great Chianti Classico wines.

I rented an apartment in 1988 to teach cooking classes to American college students, just down the street from Trattoria Mario, near the Mercato Centrale downtown Florence. It was our go to place for lunch. Romeo and Fabio Colzi and their mom Elena ran the place with Romeo’s wife Patrizia. Not much as changed since I went there in the 80’s. Elena, Rome0 and Fabio’s mom is no longer with us. Romeo’s grown children Carolina and Francesco are working along side their parents now. They still have a menu with daily specials. As most trattoria’s in Florence, they are known for their huge 2 pound T-bone Steaks called Bistecca alla Fiorentina. It is meant to be shared, the more people you have the larger your steak can be even larger. Friday is Fish and Saturday is Ossobuco!

I have written about Mario’s fabulous Ribollita soup here.

Today we went down to Florence to have lunch and celebrate their 70th anniversary!!! Hard to believe we have been around for 40 of them! We couldn’t stay to go to the huge party they are throwing tonight at the Mercato! We went down to have lunch instead.

As part of the weekly menu, we were lucky as one of my favorite dishes was on the menu today, Wednesday has the Braciole in Salsa, a delicate slice of breaded fried beef, recooked in a tomato sauce. It melts in your mouth! We started with the Crostini di Fegatini, Chicken Liver Pate on toast, then Andrea had Rigatoni with their incredible ragu. We ordered the Arista, roast pork and we got two orders of the french fries which they make from fresh potatoes. Dessert the classic Biscotti and Vin Santo to dip the cookies in plus a Bacione, a bitter chocolate dessert.