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For those who love meals and wish to expertise a few of Italy’s finest regional delicacies and wines, it is best to undoubtedly embody a Florence meals tour as a part of your itinerary.
In any case, a go to to Italy isn’t full with out sampling Tuscan cheese, sipping Chianti, munching on cantucci (often known as biscotti) and exploring scrumptious regional dishes.
Why Take a Meals Tour in Florence?
With its location within the fertile coronary heart of Italy, Tuscany is an unimaginable vacation spot for foodies. Its markets brim with the contemporary produce and meats that kind the spine of Tuscany’s hearty delicacies.
And Florence makes the proper base to dive into the area’s flavours. It’s really house to the #1 Meals & Wine Tour in Italy on Journey Advisor and my favorite place relating to meals!
I’ve taken cooking lessons within the Tuscan countryside, scoured the streets of Florence scouting out the most effective Florentine steak and damaged many a suitcase toting house bottles of its treasured olive oil.
So when you’ve seen Michelangelo’s David on the Accademia Gallery (that is my fave Skip-the-Line Tour of the Accademia) and marvelled at masterpieces within the well-known Uffizi Gallery (beloved this Guided Uffizi Tour), it’ll be time to expertise Florence like an area.
And this implies meals! Pattern essentially the most well-known dishes of Florence. Prime must-try dishes embody bistecca alla Fiorentina, panzanella (the famend summer season salad with sun-ripened greens and chunks of bread) and lampredotto (cow abdomen).
Listed here are my picks of the most effective meals excursions in Florence so as to add to your Tuscan itinerary.
1. Florence Dinner Tour: Truffle, Florentine Steak and Wine
Florence is filled with appeal. But it surely’s additionally filled with vacationer traps. In order for you a really memorable evening out, skip the plastic menus and touristy eating places, and deal with your self to one thing particular.
This highly-rated Consuming Europe meals tour isn’t simply dinner. It’s a full-on Florentine meals expertise.
On this dinner tour, you’ll savour wealthy, handmade truffle pasta produced from natural substances, take pleasure in a non-public tasting of a few of Tuscany’s finest wines in a centuries-old cellar, and sit right down to a correct Florentine steak, ready the best way locals have beloved for generations.
This meals expertise additionally consists of stops at family-run retailers and bakeries, tastings of regional dishes like pappa al pomodoro and wild boar ravioli, and even a go to to Florence’s well-known wine home windows, a unusual custom you would possibly miss and not using a information. Prime all of it off with artisan gelato from one of many metropolis’s finest gelaterias.
It’s indulgent, it’s native, and it’s crafted that can assist you join with Florence past the postcard model. All this, with out ever leaving the guts of the town.
Professional Tip: Scoring 10% off with our unique Subscriber Promo Code makes this a fair higher deal!
2. Uncover the Different Aspect of Florence in a Tour of Oltrarno
In the course of the Different Aspect of Florence Meals Tour, you’ll start your meals strolling tour close to the Carraia Bridge over the Arno River, exploring Oltrarno a bohemian neighbourhood with a wealthy artisanal heritage and up to date, hip vibe that’s away from the tour bus teams.
So, except you’re visiting Florence in winter, this meals tour is one of the best ways to keep away from the crowds of vacationers.
You’ll expertise Florence like an area whereas having fun with meals and wine tastings at eight totally different stops.
Pattern Tuscan cheeses resembling pecorino made with milk from native farms, utilizing centuries-old strategies and processes handed down over the centuries.
Different treats embody finocchiona, a fennel-spiced salami and Italian cantucci (cookies). You’ll additionally take pleasure in a tutoured tasting Chianti, produced within the Chianti area of central Tuscany.
All Consuming Europe tour guides are locals who know and love meals. In addition they know most of the households who’ve been producing the substances for and getting ready these regional dishes for generations. So that you get to listen to the tales behind the meals you’ll be tasting.
Not like different strolling excursions the place wine may not be included, Consuming Europe’s meals excursions are all-inclusive which suggests you don’t pay additional for wine and spirits featured of their excursions.
3. Discover Florence on a Sundown Meals Tour
Florence is totally magical when the solar begins to set and the crowds disappear. Sundown is the most effective time to see well-known sights such because the Ponte Vecchio, the medieval stone bridge over the river Arno.
So, if you happen to’re in search of high issues to see and do in Florence within the night you may be concerned about Consuming Europe’s Florence Sundown Meals Tour.
This 3.5 hour meals tour begins at sundown and options the most effective eating places and wine bars in Florence. You’ll additionally discover ways to make a Negroni, Florence’s most well-known cocktail and nibble on artisanal truffle cheese and cured native meats.
An particularly memorable expertise is watching an illustration of methods to prepare dinner the well-known Florentine steak, the Bistecca alla Fiorentina.
One other traditional meals expertise in Florence is sipping vin santo together with biscotti. That is additionally included within the Florence Sundown Tour at no additional price.
For those who’re a solo traveller, a culinary strolling tour is without doubt one of the finest methods to expertise Florence if you wish to discover the town and don’t wish to eat or hand around in bars alone.
4. Take a Tour of San Lorenzo Market with a Wine Tasting
Exploring a meals market is without doubt one of the finest methods to get to know a metropolis, and it’s even higher when you’ve got an area knowledgeable to point out you all the most effective locations to eat.
This Florence Tour of San Lorenzo Market will allow you to style your manner round San Lorenzo Market, Florence’s most well-known indoor and out of doors market.
Your information is aware of all of the distributors at San Lorenzo, and so they’ll introduce you to the households who maintain Tuscan meals historical past alive by way of their fabulous produce. You’ll take pleasure in domestically produced olive oils, artisanal cheeses, Tuscan cured meats, contemporary cantucci biscuits, and far more.
When you’ve completed grazing your manner by way of the meals market, you’ll head to considered one of Florence’s most historic wine retailers. There, you’ll spherical off your day with a non-public wine tasting and specifically chosen meals pairings.
Including a meals strolling tour to your Florence itinerary is the best manner to take in some native Tuscan flavour in a brief time frame.
Examine costs and availability of a Florence San Lorenzo Market Tour and Wine Tasting on Viator.com.
5. Uncover Tuscan Wines with Secret Meals Excursions
Assume Tuscan wines are all about Chianti? Tuscany is definitely the third highest producer of DOC and DOCG wines in Italy after Sicily and Puglia. You’ll get a style of the wide selection of Italian wines produced within the Tuscany area on this non-public strolling tour provided by Secret Meals Excursions.
You’ll stroll by way of Florence’s historic zone studying about its wealthy heritage whereas visiting three enotecas (wine bars) to pattern six totally different wines. Your day will end with a sundown ‘Secret Sip’ in considered one of Florence’s medieval squares.
For those who’ve ever frightened {that a} wine tour may be just a little intimidating, this tour shall be very best for you. It’s designed to supply a calming environment the place you may take pleasure in scrumptious wines with no need an -in-depth understanding of wine terminology.
Mild snacks shall be offered alongside the wines. You can too improve your tour to incorporate a number of native Tuscan cheeses and cured meats.
6. Get Cooking with an Genuine Florence House-Cooking Class
This 4.5 hour Florence House Cooking Class begins with purchasing for substances within the tiny retailers and markets of the bohemian neighbourhood of Oltrarno.
Then, you’ll have a hands-on cooking class in an area chef’s historic house.
In the course of the class you’ll discover ways to make numerous kinds of pasta, you’ll pattern appetizers, sip wine after which craft your individual panna cotta dessert.
Your foodie expertise will wrap up with a leisurely Tuscan lunch together with your group.
It’s an particularly useful tour if you happen to’re staying in one of many household pleasant accommodations in Florence as you may simply stroll to affix the expertise.
Like all different Consuming Italy excursions, this Florence cooking class is all-inclusive which suggests you don’t pay additional for the wines loved with lunch.
Professional Tip: Keep in mind to subscribe to the A Style for Journey e-newsletter to get 10% off!
7. Get Out of City on a Tuscan Wine and Meals Tour Day Journey
In case you have time for a day journey from Florence, a full-day Tuscan Meals Tour with an area knowledgeable is an effective way to discover the area together with Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa.
You’ll spend the morning exploring the medieval metropolis of Siena, together with the gothic cathedral, il Duomo di Siena, which is much more spectacular than Florence’s Duomo.
Then, within the afternoon, you’ll go to the hillside city of San Gimignano, a UNESCO World Heritage Website well-known for its tower-houses.
However the spotlight of your tour is a hearty lunch at an natural wine property. You’ll take pleasure in selfmade pasta, prosciutto, and salami, along with native cheeses, fresh-baked biscotti and, after all, beneficiant pours of the property’s wines.
You’ll have an opportunity to fill up on Tuscan wines together with Chianti, Merlot, and glowing Spumante Brut within the farm store earlier than you head in your manner. And don’t overlook to take pictures of the beautiful views from the vineyard!
Examine costs and availability of a Full-Day Tuscan Wine Tour on Viator.com.
8. Go Truffle Looking in Tuscany (with Lunch)
Truffles are one of many world’s most costly substances as a result of they’re laborious to seek out, troublesome to develop, and scrumptious! So, going truffle looking in Italy is an effective way to find out about this luxury regional specialty.
On this Tuscan meals tour, you’ll discover a Tuscan oak forest close to San Miniato with knowledgeable truffle hunter. They’ll educate you all that you must find out about white and black truffles whereas their intelligent canines set to work sniffing out truffles.
On the finish of your Tuscany truffle looking expertise, you’ll go to an area vineyard to style an array of regional wines together with Chianti and Tremendous Tuscan wine. Your 2-course lunch will function white truffles within the traditional dish tagliolini al tartufo.
Examine costs and availability of a Truffle Looking Tour with Lunch on Viator.com.
9. Delve into Italian Olive Oil with a VIP Olive Oil Tasting
Italian olive oil is taken into account among the many finest on this planet by way of flavour and high quality. Whereas the Puglia area produces nearly all of the nation’s olive oil, the oil of Tuscany is prized for its depth of flavour, slight bitterness and aromatic fruity notes.
One of the simplest ways to be taught in regards to the refined nuances of Tuscan olive oil is to take an tour to the olive groves of Fattoria di Maiano, simply 20 minutes away from Florence by automotive. Right here, greater than 20,000 olive bushes line the hills of Fiesole, overlooking Florence.
You’ll have to hire a automotive to get to Fattoria di Maiano.
We hire our automobiles on Discovercars.com. It’s an internet automotive rental reserving web site that compares charges from a number of firms to seek out the most effective deal.
On this four-hour Tuscany meals tour, you’ll start with a guided tour of the villa’s verdant gardens. These have been opened by Queen Victoria and as soon as performed host to famend artists like Michelangelo, Boccaccio, and da Vinci.
After getting explored the villa’s gardens, orchards, and farm, you’ll go to the Mill to see how Fattoria di Maiano creates its natural, extra-virgin olive oil. There’ll even be a chance to style the oils, accompanied by different Tuscan delights like prosciutto, Pecorino cheese, and a glass of native purple wine.
10. Be taught Tips on how to Make Pizza and Gelato in a Cooking Class
Whereas pasta is commonly on the menu of cooking lessons in Florence, an equally fashionable foodie expertise is to be taught to grasp the artwork of constructing pizza. This present day journey incorporates a Tuscan Pizza and Gelato Cooking Class in a historic Tuscan farmhouse.
Not solely will you discover ways to make pizza in a enjoyable hands-on cooking class hosted by knowledgeable Italian chef however you’ll benefit from the fruits of your labours in a 3-course feast accompanied by regional wine and beer.
This Florence day journey even consists of transportation which suggests you don’t need to hire a automotive.
Examine costs and availability of a Tuscan Pizza and Gelato Cooking Class on Viator.com.
Save with our Unique 10% Consuming Europe Low cost Code
Consuming Europe has generously provided a ten% Consuming Europe Meals Excursions Low cost Code for subscribers to A Style for Journey.
You need to use the ten% low cost on any of the Consuming Italy Florence Excursions. Use your 10% low cost code (tastefortravel) right here:
Consuming Italy Food Excursions
For those who’re in Rome, you may simply add a meals tour in Florence on a day journey from Rome.
FAQs
One of the best meals tour for avoiding crowds in Florence is the ‘Different Aspect of Florence Tour’ provided by Consuming Europe because it focuses on the Oltrarno neighbourhood throughout the Arno River. One other good choice is to take a Florence Sundown Tour as many of the day-tripping vacationers can have left the town centre by early night. Or, take a wine tasting or olive oil meals tour within the Tuscan countryside.
For sure, essentially the most well-known meals in Florence is bistecca alla fiorentina. This particular reduce of meat is a specialty of Tuscany and incorporates a porterhouse steak, from the traditional Tuscan breed of Chianina cattle, grilled over sizzling coals.
Sipping distinctive wines, shopping markets and chatting with producers and store homeowners throughout a meals tour presents a tasty immersion right into a metropolis’s tradition, historical past and native life. Meals excursions supply alternatives to expertise a vacation spot in methods you normally can’t organize by yourself.
Extra Journey Guides to the Greatest Meals in Italy
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This publish was initially revealed in 2017 however was up to date with new analysis in 2025.
