Adjacent to the restaurant is a cheery boutique filled with gourmet products from all over Tuscany. Thanks to the restaurant’s long-standing relationships with many of the region’s top purveyors, you’ll find high-quality olive oil (tastings can also be arranged), cheeses, cured meat, preserves, breads, and more. Not all of it will make it through customs, but you can savor any perishables on a picnic to the Tuscan countryside.
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Gourmet food off the beaten track
Some of the best gourmet experiences in Florence are to be found way off the tourist radar; chef Beatrice Segoni’s superb food is a case in point. Part gourmet deli, part ‘gastro-bistrot and wine bar,’ elegant Convivium is located in an eastern suburb of the city, but don’t let that put you off. Segoni is one of the most respected chefs cooking in Florence today and her menus showcase fresh, seasonal, locally-sourced produce which is prepared with the minimum of fuss, allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves: flavours are decisive and dishes are based on regional traditions. Segoni hails from the coastal region of Le Marche, so fish and seafood play an important role in her cooking. The delicate ravioli stuffed with baccalà (salt cod) and served on a chick pea purée and her signature ‘brodetto,’ a kind of fish stew are recommended. But there’s plenty of choice for carnivores, too: pappardelle pasta dressed with wild boar and olive sauce and slow-braised veal cheek with wine-poached pears, for example. Lunchtime menus are a little more casual, but at dinner, you can push the boat out for a celebration meal with a great bottle of wine from the 1,000-strong list. Convivium is just a short taxi ride from the Ponte Vecchio.
Convivial food and wine
A stylish little restaurant and food emporium where you can sample creative Tuscan cooking in-house or buy dishes to go. Chequer-board floors and shelves piled with interesting-looking bottles and jars play backdrop to taglierini with fresh truffle shavings and pork fillet with figs. This is a good place to sample the new season’s extra virgin olive oil: tastings can be arranged on request.
