Florence Food

     Florence was the first stop during our week in Italy.  Unfortunately, some of our favorite meals of the trip will only live on in our memories, as we lost a portion of our pictures when we got home.  For example, our first night in Florence I had some life-changing truffle ravioli.  So life-changing that Kevin looked at me after my first bite and asked "Are you crying?"  Um, I wasn't quite shedding tears but it was that good y'all!  There are no pictures of it, but the legend of the delicious ravioli will live on forever.  Here's a sampling of some other goodies we saw and ate while in beautiful Florence.

 {Candy shop. We saved our candy buying for Paris though}

 

 {There are delicious sandwich and panini shops everywhere. Side note: this was the best fruit cup we've ever eaten}

 {Birthday gelato from Rivereno}

     {More birthday gelato. I had the Mayan and Aztec flavors. One was chocolate with chile pepper and the other was white chocolate with cinnamon. So amazing.}

    Probably our favorite part of the entire trip was the Florence for Foodies Tour that we took on our last day in Florence.  It was led by our guide, Natalie, who was fun and knowledgeable and taught us (and fed us!) so much.  We learned a lot about regional Italian cuisine (some of Florence's specialties are chianti, Brunello, picci pasta, truffle dishes, and prosciutto crudo).  I highly recommend this tour or one like it if you love food, like learning about food culture, and like to drink.  There was a ton of alcohol--I'm talking breakfast wine, white wine, prosecco, and grappa.  

Where we ate:
Zaza Trattoria- they have a truffle menu--a whole menu with only dishes featuring truffles, so this place is my restaurant soulmate
Gusta Pizza- seating is limited so order a pizza and bottle of wine to go!
Coquinarius- try the pear ravioli
La Strega Nocciola- our favorite gelato
Rivereno- more great gelato
Perche No!- famous gelato place; we sampled about 9 flavors on our tour and loved them all

Tomorrow I'll be sharing more about what we did and saw in Florence.

*Linking up with Taste of Tuesday with Ashley and Jessica