Street Food in Italy - FLORENCE'S #1 PANINI at All'antico Vinaio + ITALIAN STREET FOOD in Tuscany!

Welcome to Chopstick Travel. I'm Luke Martin and today we are in Florence, Italy. This is the birthplace of the Renaissance and the capital of Tuscany, a true food lover's paradise and we are going to be taking you for the ultimate day of eating here in Florence, showing you some authentic Italian Tuscan restaurants and food, none of that tourist trap stuff. So to start the day we are heading to the Mercato Centrale, the central market is right behind me here so let's go get breakfast. So this is the central market filled to the brim with beautiful Italian produce. This region, Tuscany, is famous for their highest quality ingredients and this market is a little bit touristy definitely but there is one thing in here that we really wanted to try. So we are just taking a walk through, taking in all the beautiful views, this place is really vibrant and then we are going to grab breakfast. Our first stop for breakfast today is at a restaurant called Nurbone directly inside of the Mercato Centrale and they have been open since 1872 and they are famous for serving It's the tripe, so cow's stomach, specifically the third and fourth chamber of the stomach and he's put it in this beautiful bun here and then topped it with a little bit of pesto and a little bit of chili. I've never had this before, I've had tripe of course but never in a sandwich quite like this and it looks really good, steaming hot so let's try it. Oh yeah, oh that's fabulous, I love the chili. So the chili is quite spicy and there's a little bit of a sourness going on in there too. That tripe, really, really soft, you can't even taste any gaminess whatsoever, it just tastes a little bit beefy but extremely soft, almost like ham and then that nice crispy bun, oh man, that's a perfect little sandwich and those chilies have some heat. The tripe has been stewing, you can see all of the juice just collecting at the bottom of the sandwich bag here and there's little layers of fat and then leaner parts, oh it's just so good. That honestly, it doesn't taste like ofo whatsoever, you can't taste any gaminess, it's really just like meat and it's delicious. That was really, really good, I love the spicy chili in there, this place is really popular with the locals, especially early in the morning like right now but later in the afternoon it's going to be even more busy with a lot of tourists, I definitely recommend it, really good experience and the Lampedoto is delicious. It wouldn't be a true Italian breakfast without some cafe espresso, so let's get some. So we're at this little cafe right inside the market, just standing and we've got ourselves a beautiful little shot of espresso and if you want to do it like the Italians do it, you've got to put the entire bag of sugar in, this is only like barely, only a few milliliters, super tiny and that's a lot of sugar. Oh yeah, that'll wake you up, that is smoky, really rich, really thick and then super sweet but that is so good for the morning. So that was it for the market, there is an upstairs part to the market but it's even more tourist oriented, a lot of international cuisines, so we're going to keep going, explore the city a little bit before lunch time. I just wanted to take a minute to thank today's sponsor, ExpressVPN. For those of you who don't know, a VPN or virtual private network is the best way to ensure your total online security. All you have to do is open the app and with one click, I am connected to a secure network in Toronto. 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It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, really beautiful architecture, it's got the iconic dome on the top, it's one of the symbols of Florence and I really just love the colors that they use. It's sort of like green, pink and white. It's extremely busy with tourists here. Make sure if you do come to watch your pockets for pickpockets and I would not recommend dining at any of the restaurants surrounding the Duomo. I can guarantee you that they're going to be extremely expensive and bad food or extremely expensive and average food. So you can walk a little farther away or just follow our guide today for the best restaurants but do come here because it is absolutely beautiful. Do not miss this cathedral while you're in Florence, it's a must-see. There are frescoes, there are statues and that's just on the outside, if you go inside you can go all the way up to the dome, there's a museum, it's very very beautiful and a must-see. There are so many dining options here in Florence, you do not have to eat in the Duomo so we're going to walk just three minutes away from the Piazza to a very authentic Tuscan restaurant and I know you're going to love it. We only walked three minutes down the street from the Duomo to the Basilica di San Lorenzo and there is a hidden Trattoria which is an Italian home style restaurant right across the street called Trattoria Sergio Gozzi, it's serving Tuscan home cook style food. We are just waiting for it to open at noon and it's only open from noon to 3pm, you could easily miss it if you weren't looking for it. So let's wait and then we'll go in and have lunch. What time is it? It's noon, you can hear the bells ringing in the background and that means this place is going to open its doors any second now. We are sitting down now, this is such a cool authentic atmosphere, I do recommend having a reservation unless you are like us and show up before they even open and line up because it really fills up and you're fast. So we have the menu, it's the menu of the day, you can see here we've got a very short menu which is a good sign and we're going to try a couple of their pastas and a main. We also have ordered the house red wine, so just settling down for a nice lunch. So my first dish has arrived, this is the ravioli with ragu di tianina which is a special type of Tuscan cow that they're making this meat sauce mixed with tomatoes and just look at this, it's absolutely beautiful. These big raviolis that are stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach and I'm just going to go right in, cut one of these open so we can take a look inside, look at that. This is absolutely beautiful, I love the presentation too, it's just gorgeous. Let me turn this around, look at that, oh yeah. You can see all that white ricotta cheese and that spinach, put a little bit more meat sauce on top here and let me try this. That is awesome, the wrapper has such a like bouncy texture to it and then really really creamy cheese on the inside and then you can taste that kind of vegetable spinach, really nice tomato kind of tartness and then that meat and it just falls apart, that is such a beautiful thing, look at that. It really is all about the sauce that's on the outside, it's just perfection. One of my favorite things about this restaurant is that they serve parmigiano reggiano on the table, you can put as much as you like and it just goes perfectly with that ragu sauce, just melts in there, gives it that kind of saltiness and cheesiness that it's missing and oh man, I am in heaven. This is seriously like fine dining but also with a very casual atmosphere and casual feel so it doesn't feel kind of strict, you can just enjoy the food for what it is. I have ordered something a little different, this is the tortellacci with porcini mushroom and truffle cream sauce and it is stuffed with the same ricotta and spinach. Just check this out, this is amazing and they did not skimp out on that cream sauce, look how much is on there, oh it smells so good, let me give it a try. Oh my goodness, so soft, cheesy and earthy, that is spectacular. Wow and I'm just gonna wash this down with the house wine. This is really good. Our meat course has arrived and this thing is absolutely beautiful, check it out, this is called peposo, it's a Tuscan red wine and pepper beef stew so you can see the stewed beef is like fall apart is an understatement, look at this, absolutely just falls apart, so so tender and then this red wine pepper sauce is so fragrant, let me just grab a spoonful and just try it as is like this. That is mind-blowing, oh my god, that is so good, the texture of the beef is just so so tender, it's much more tender than you can get from roasting it, it's very juicy because it's been stewed for so long but then really it's all about that sauce, it's actually a little bit spicy because of the black pepper but you can taste once again sort of like a sourness from that red wine, you can see those bay leaves on top too and just incredibly tender meat fall apart, wow, guys this is so good, this might be the best dish I've had in a long time. On every single table here in a Florence restaurant you will find some Florentine bread, there's not much salt to it, there's not much flavor and it's kind of hard but this is the perfect bread to mop up all of this insanely sour sauce that came with the beef and there's tons of it so I'm just gonna go crazy. There's lots of peppercorns mixed in there, this is gonna be good. Wow, that was seriously good, what did you think? That was so good, maybe one of the best meals I've had in Europe. Yeah, I'd have to say so too, there is a ton of delicious authentic trattorias here in Florence but that place just hits all the right notes for me, very authentic, delicious food, great price and the atmosphere is very local, lots of locals in there, you can see there's a big line up now, this place has been open since 1915 so they're certainly doing something right, that was awesome, so let's go check out some of the sights of Florence. So we are just checking out Plaza della Signoria which is one of the main squares in all Florence and probably one of the most beautiful parts of the entire city. There's a couple different components that are really unique, mainly just these many monuments and statues, beautiful cathedrals, clock towers, fountains, lots of people of course but it's all free to just explore outside and especially this area behind me, there are all these beautiful sculptures, unfortunately I really can't tell you anything about them, maybe if they're of different Italian foods I could tell you about them but I don't really know anything about this but still, just beautiful to check out. This city really has so much, there is so much art, so much architecture, so much history, you could spend forever here just learning about everything and then of course it's also the center of food culture here in Italy, just delicious food, really what more could you want. Did you get the shot? Something you're also going to notice when you're here at the Piazza della Signoria is that everyone's eating a sandwich and it looks like the same sandwich and that's because there is an extremely popular panini restaurant that's just down the street, even though we're quite full we're gonna go check it out right now. This is crazy, I've never seen a line like this in Europe, means it's good. So we are in line at Al Antico Vinaio which is a very famous panini shop, the street is just packed with people that are hungry and looking for a panini, they actually have four different shops all on the same street, some across from each other, some on the same side and that's just to handle the amount of customers and I think they just recently opened up different outlets in New York and San Francisco or something and the line is moving a little slow, it's going to be a little while, it's a huge line but I think it's going to be really good. Ciao! So we waited about 25 maybe 30 minutes to get our sandwich and there are, like I mentioned, four of these shops, I believe we went to the original one which is the last one on the left if you're coming from the Piazza and they all have lines, really really busy, it's about 3pm on a Saturday and we ordered up our beautiful sandwich here, they do have a menu of recommended sandwiches but you can also customize your own, so I ordered del Mella which is the smoked, more like smoky flavor, so we've got speck ham which is a smoked ham and then underneath here we've got scarmoza cheese which is also smoked and then we've got porcini mushroom cream and truffle cream as well and it's all on their famous scatiata bread which is really like a hard, dense bread, super crispy, oh man my mouth is watering and I'm not even that hungry but let's try this, oh man, oh yeah, that is so good! First of all that bread is quite chewy, it definitely takes some work to kind of break it down but it works really well with all of those ingredients because there is a ton of that truffle and mushroom sauce, that cream sauce which is completely saturating the bread and then that speck, that smoky ham is working so well with the earthy flavor of the truffle as well and then cheese which is also smoky, oh it just goes so well, look at that and all of this for only five euros, that's what makes this place so popular, you cannot get deals like that here in Florence but man this is just incredible, look at that, oh my god, the speck in this sandwich is just one of the many different meats they offer, they have prosciutto, salami, pancetta and so on, the list goes on and this is absolutely delicious and I just love the atmosphere here. If you're looking for a quick snack in Florence for a good price and really high quality ingredients, that is your place, Al Antico Vinaio and the bread is so good even though it doesn't have much flavor, it's a Florentine style bread with no excess salt and not many ingredients, it's very dense, it kind of cuts your mouth up a little bit once you're finished eating that sandwich but it's worth it. We have come to see the iconic Ponte Vecchio which is the famous bridge here in Florence and we have come across to get a view of it from the other side, it's much more beautiful here, it's very touristy on the bridge, it's filled with jewelry shops but back in its prime it used to be a place where butchers would set up shop. There is only one thing I want more than anything after a full day of eating and that is gelato so we're heading to a local gelato place to finish off our day. So if you're familiar with Florence I know what you're thinking right now, it's the end of the video and we still haven't eaten Florentine steak but let me tell you after an entire day of eating the last thing we wanted to do was spend a hundred dollars on a 1.2 kg steak so we figured we'd just take you to a really cool gelato shop, this place is called Gelateria dei Nari and they use all natural ingredients to make their gelato so I've got myself a raspberry and then dark chocolate on the other side which is my ultimate combination. Let's try this, oh yeah, oh that's so good and that chocolate is so rich and dark, super super creamy, you can taste the kind of like elasticity or feel the elasticity, oh that is so good and I am a steak this time but I'm sure we will be back and if you guys are looking for a good place to try it it is called Trattoria Tito, Trattoria Tito, that's the place we had picked out but unfortunately we're not going to make it there tonight so we're going to enjoy our gelato and talk to you after. Alright guys that's it for today's episode, what an incredible day of eating here in Florence, this is a true food lover's paradise, a little bit sad that we didn't get to eat the steak so we'll just have to make sure we come back to try it next time. If you've tried it let us know down below and let us know down below also what you thought looked the most delicious, I'd have to say that sandwich, it's just the ultimate food, it's so cheap, so delicious, so high quality. My tortelli which was with the tortellini which was with the mushroom and truffle sauce. Yeah oh man and the peposo, the red wine with pepper, beef, everything's just so good. Yeah this is seriously an incredible food destination so make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, we're heading to the next location which is Roma so subscribe, hit the bell icon and you'll be notified when we post and we'll see you on another episode of Chopstick Travel, bye!