BEST RESTAURANT IN FLORENCE: IL LATINI

What a day we had in Florence – truly spectacular and my daughter has been positively squeaky with delight about seeing all the pieces of art she has been studying actually in the flesh. So after a busy day (see yesterday’s post) we booked ourselves into one of Florence’s best known family restaurants “Il Latini” found in Via Palchetti. Certainly voted best restaurant in Florence by my crew.

It was raining on the way there, but frankly my daughter made the most of it and found a topical umbrella with which to cruise the streets.

It’s slightly off the beaten track so it was a shock to see a heaving mass outside the door at 7.30pm on the dot. They take two sittings one at 7.30pm and one at 9.30pm and it is very popular so make sure you book. Even having booked we had to squeeze our way in slowly and rather stressfully as so many people wanted to get ahead of us. You think you’re going to miss out because it looks like a rather small restaurant, but fear not, it’s actually very cavernous with lots of different rooms and generally space for everyone. Famous for it’s delicious hanging parma hams:-

There is even a very pretty courtyard where they sat us. Lots of large rowdy family groups surrounded us. It was happy and noisy. They recommend that you simply sit back and enjoy the ride “famiglia” style which means everything gets chucked in the middle for sharing – best sort of eating as far as I’m concerned because you get to try everything. For 45 euros a head you get to drink as much wine as you want, have a starter of ham, salad and liver pate, followed by a mountain of meat, then pudding, sweet wine, some sort of sherry and biscottes and then limoncella.

The most delicious plate of parma ham I’ve ever had:-

I’ll upload some other food pictures when I’m back home, but in the meantime….

Puddings:-

You won’t be disappointed and you will wobble out full of food and good cheer all round. We left feeling like this:-

and on route had a chat with the chef:-

Followed by our waiters:-

Followed by the owner:-

Followed by a lovely stroll home through a very buzzy night, after their national holiday celebrations:-