Christmas in Florence

Hi there, ernst924 -
Recommendations for tours depend on what sorts of things you are interested in....and you do not NEED tours for everything if you have a good guidebook and do some pre-research. What sorts of things do you want to see in Florence and Rome, aside from what you've already booked? No, "the usual sights" isn't a good enough answer. While not religious, I can send you to terrific churches all day for their art and architecture but if you aren't wild about such things, then it's a waste of information. Same for some wonderful art museums. So???

I don't have any specific recommendation, but you may want to be aware (if you're not already) that the tradition of Christmas in Tuscany is very quiet and family oriented. Florence, being a major city, will certainly have restaurants that are open and a relatively festive atmosphere, but it may still be more subdued than we're used to in North America.

Hi - thanks for the input - I think we would like to see the 'usual' things (sorry) - the highlights of the art and churches - but sometimes we enjoy doing the tours so we can understand the relevance of what we are seeing.

Florence has a wonderful buzz about it at Christmas. You'll have no shortage of restaurant options on Christmas Eve, however Christmas Day (and to a lesser extent, the 26th, St. Stephens Day) will find only a sparse number of restaurants open for business. A couple of ideas/suggestions for your visit: Check to see if the (Santa Croce) German Christmas Market is still open by your arrival on the 20th; that's usually right around the time they're packing stuff up and closing down the stands [it runs off the Advent Calendar, so the event's exact dates change annually, and I'm not sure when they fall this December]. Back to restaurants, we really enjoyed a Christmas Eve dinner at Da l' Conte Diladdarno. The food and service couldn't have been better ('memorable' in fact) and, as it was the night before Christmas, the cook, the owner and the waitstaff all took turns coming by every table to share holiday wishes and offer extra plates of goodies. It was like being in someone's home. Start with their 'cutting board' (tagliera) and let the meal evolve from there. For Christmas Day, other than hotels, there aren't many restaurants open. We reserved a table months' ahead at Trattoria 4 Leoni for the traditional, mid-afternoon seating on Christmas Day, and the food was meh... If you really want a restaurant dinner on Christmas you'll need to book a table well in advance for the few open establishments.

Two other food related recommendations for your visit: Trattoria Sostanza's 'butter chicken' (pollo al burro) is a must; and near the Uffizi Gallery is a butcher shop called Alimentari Uffizi. In between waiting on locals and fulfilling their to-go orders, the butchers there have three small tables and will create for you a wonderful assortment of focaccia and olives, cheeses and prosciutto, with a little locally made vino. They're open on the 26th (that's when we went), so a good lunch option on St. Stephens Day.

One last restaurant recommendation (occurred to me while typing) would be Al Tranvai, another small intimate place across the river and open only for dinner. It was so good that after eating there we cancelled two other (nights') reservations and returned for a total of three dinners. Same for Da l' Conte Diladdarno (Christmas Eve recommendation) ... we had to return a second time in lieu of other pre-made reservations, it was so good.

None of the recommended places are expensive nor what I would call 'fancy', just good food served by nice people. Have a great trip!

Matt - thanks for the recommendations - I think the first restaurant may be called http://www.visitare-firenze.it/ristorante-carlino-diladdarno/ Carlino Diladdarno now, can you confirm that.

Also - is there a trick to being able to reserve at these restaurants online or is that not very common in Italy? I don't see online bookings for either restaurant.

Thank you so much for the recommendations!

Hi Ernst,

Glad to help. Different 'Diladdarno' from what I can tell, here's the one we would recommend:

https://www.trattoriadiladdarno.com/menu/
See 'Gran Tagliere' (last item under antipasti), that's the ticket! :)

Your findings regarding online reservations are correct, many don't offer email/website. I remember we called Trattoria Sostanza for our reservation, and they were most pleasant in taking our information over the phone. These restaurants are small, with only one or two people outside of the kitchen, so I found it a good practice to call them between lunch and dinner service (in our instance, 7:00am in CA = 16:00 local time). For those without websites, where google searches come up empty, try looking them up at TripAdvisor or Yelp which usually list phone number/s along with reviews. Don't forget your daily gelato while enjoying Firenze !!

Matt:
Thank you so much - this looks delicious - will definitely try to book it!