Places to eat in Florence without a reservation

Hi there, I would not worry about having reservations in Florence, no matter when you want to eat. I've been there twice in the last 4 years and have never had a problem finding a place to eat. Once, we were a group of seven and another time, a group of 4. Unless, of course, you are trying to get into a very popular, well-known establishment, which we never were. There are plenty of places to eat, outdoors or indoors. Enjoy

Thanks Lisa.

Just wanted to remark that the Rick Steves Italian phrasebook has a very useful 'menu decoder' section, which might help allay your concerns about 'mystery food'.:)

I never thought of menu items as mystery foods. My concern was not knowing what the English translations of foods are.

I don't think you will have a problem finding a place to eat for lunch without a reservation. Dinner, however, may be another story. Some restaurants do recommend reservations.

During my two trips to Florence, I never had a problem finding a suitable (not-so-touristy) place to dine. Here are a few hints:

• For better food at a more reasonable cost, stay out of the Piazza restaurants. The views might be remarkable but the quality of the meal will usually NOT be.

• Head to the other side of the Arno river for the best meals at the best prices.

• Supper begins between 7:00pm and 8:00pm but many "tourist" restaurants open earlier.

• The Mercado has a large, and awesome, food court (done Italian style) on the second floor above the food market.

TW, bring a guidebook with a basic translation guide in it. Aside from food, there will be some others situations which you may use it for. Also, menus are almost always posted outside eating establishments so you can check what they have, and you'll be able to see if they're written multi-lingually.

There's no shortage places to eat anywhere in Florence. Google "restaurants, Florence, Italy": you'll see on a map how many there are. Zoom into an area - say, around Santa Croce - and even more will pop up. Check to see which of them have websites: some post menus in English. You can also copy-paste some menus into google or bing translate to create an English version.

Francesco Vini is very close to Santa Croce and we had a nice dinner there. They're open for lunch as well (closed Sundays and Mondays).

http://www.francescovini.com

We have never made a reservation anywhere in Italy but we also fill up at breakfast, skip lunch (other than gelato in the afternoon) and have dinner at what people might consider an unfashionable hour. But we're hungry by late afternoon/early evening, and eating early often lands us better tables than we might have otherwise.

Thanks for the link Kathy.

Italians tend to eat dinner late so if you show up right at the start of dinner hours (like 6 or 7PM) you should be ok. If you can find a place serving dinner at 5:00PM it would likely be totally dead. If you're still nervous just pop by a place during the morning or lunch hours and ask to make a reservation for that evening (should not be an issue at most places). Florence's tourism area is really really compact and walkable, wherever you happen to be early in the day should not be hard to get back to later on.

Bhak, my concern about finding tables without reservations is only for lunch. I don't mind making reservations for supper.