I ❤️ Markets- Firenze

Welcome to my home town

Who knew, when I came to study Italian in Florence for a month in October of 1984, that I was starting a new life.

Over the years, I have lived in several neighborhoods in and around town.Each of them has their own personality. When you live here, you really just live in your neighborhood and bond with your local mercants, coffee shop and become family.

This is part two of my Markets of Italy project for 2023. This week,my paying subscribers can download for free the guide which sells for $25. Next week I will post a typical recipe you can recreate at home. At the end of the series, you will have a collection of regional Italian recipes.

Florence was the heart of the Renaissance and art is everywhere. You don’t need to go to a museum to be immersed it the beauty. I am still overwhelmed everytime I come downtown. I head to the markets for a taste of the city.

It was a hard choice what to include in this guide. It’s impossible to list all the places I love.Since I am making a market guide, I decided to list all my favorite markets, Florence being a large town has quite a few. Not mentioning all the smaller markets which take place in the neighborhoods.

I did include my husband’s old neighborhood as it was where the third food market was to have been built and it’s the area where we probably go to eat the most. Locals don’t always care about checking out what’s new. They want to go where they are known and where they know they will eat well. Florence has changed a lot since I moved here. There are now a lot of ethnic restaurants as well.

The Mercato di San Lorenzo was my “hood” for 20 years. My cooking school was located just in front of the market and here I learned so much about the local recipes while shopping. Built in the late 1800’s it is the same style as the French train stations. My passion for markets really began here.