Eating in the Street of the Apostles

At 6.30 p.m. having got cool and fresh after this morning's exploits we went out again. Unlike the night before tonight was not as cool. Indeed the humidity of the day had seemed to intensify, so it was like walking through a blanket of wet, warm air. Still if you come to Florence in August what can you expect!

We went and collected out washing from the laundry, dropped it back to the hotel, and went in search of food.

As you will know by now we like our food. But as well as enjoying the pleasure of eating in world-class restaurants, we are also keen on going off the beaten track and finding local food cooked to perfection without fuss.

So we walked into the busiest part of town again, around the Piazza Signore, and saw lots of glitzy restaurants, but decided to head up some side streets. By 8.00 we had come back to a small street where we had visited a Church this morning, it is called the Street of the Holy Apostles. There we spotted a tiny restaurant (with only 26 seats) with two Italians eating, and thought it was just what we were looking for.

The restaurant is called Ristorante il Boccale and it is no surprise to find it doesn't have its own website, it is just not that type of place. 

We went in and were sat at a table for two. The waiter, owner, chef, who managed the operation with only the aid of one 'pot boy' in the kitchen,   was most welcoming. He brought us the menus, which were not only full of Tuscan cuisine, but were hand written and clearly not intended as permanent items, the restaurant responding to the season. The final page, the secondi piatti, was typed, but this was a page with crossings out for things no longer available. 

It was a delight to see a menu which felt authentically local, and the dishes tasted great. I began with a simple, but tasty Prosciutto e Mozzarella the salty cheese providing the perfect accompaniment to the lovely meat. Drew on the other hand had Prosciutto e Melone, the amount of melon was amazing and its sweetness also complimented the Prosciutto.

For our pasta course I oped for Spaghetti alle Vongole compared with other places we had eaten the quantity of the spaghetti and the clams were large. This is not a bad thing, I'm greedy, but it was interesting to see somewhere where the food was not played with, just cooked well and excellent to eat. I was so amazed by the number of clams on the plate that, unusually, we photographed the finished plate. Just the shells left! Drew opted for the Penne ai quattro formaggi which blended ricotta, mozzerlla, pamasan and another cheese into a robust flavoursome sauce. 

The secondi piatti saw Drew opting for the Cotoletta alla Milanese a much larger cultlet than I had when I had a similar dish a few days before. Meanwhile I had a Tuscan favourite of Salsicce e Fagioli - the pork sausage was strongly flavoured with fennal and it, with the beans in their own sauce combined to make a tingling sensation on the tongue - excellent. We had an insalata mista with our main courses.

During the meal two more tables were filled, but we spent the meal with only Italians as the other diners, making the whole experience feel more authentic. Then there was the price, including 3 litres of water and two espressos it came to 62 euros, compared to the 90-100 we had spent on other nights. Good food, with generous portion sizes and at an excellent price, who could ask for more.

The meal took us from 8.00 until 10.15, we then walked through the major shopping streets of Florence while they were quiet, and the stores closed: Prada, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Armani etc. etc. One rabbit's fur coat was being sold for 3,480 euros - that's more than my clothes budget for 6 years. So we were content with window shopping and not buying.

We got back to the hotel at 11.30 and to bed.