After some false announcements and a long wait also a Firenze opened the shop-restaurant-bookshop Eataly. In via Martelli, 100 meters from the Duomo, practically in front of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the house of Lorenzo dei Medici; a store on three floors, with a total area of ​​2000 square meters in what was once the Marzocco bookshop, later transformed into Martelli, then sadly closed.
Now with Eataly a new page of the city's tradition opens, because Oscar Farinetti's Italian food stores are a hymn to typicality, especially local. And therefore in this one in Florence, different from the other Eataly (and there are 10) scattered throughout Italy and those scattered around the world, there is the very typical lampredotto. Tripe and sandwich with lampredotto, Florentine street food are in fact the element that most attracts attention in this large space, on the ground floor. Let's understand, the lampredotto in Florence you can still find it sold in kiosks, but here it blends well with all the other typical delicacies. Sale of pizza, bread, meats, cold cuts, but also ice cream, pastries, coffee and books. Yes, because Eataly stores are not supermarkets, but centers of knowledge of food which in Italy is tradition and also art. So much so that Farinetti has invented a museum itinerary inside this historic building, dedicated to the Renaissance and curated by Antonio Scurati.
On the first floor space dedicated to drinking, with theOsteria del Vino Libero where to choose the labels and the great brands of beer.
On the second floor of the building, the panoramic one that housed the cafeteria of the Martelli library there are classrooms where to do food knowledge and nutrition education activities.
At Eataly you can eat, not only quickly or standing up, even in restaurant true that here it is called Da Vinci and is led by chef Enrico Panero.
In a Florence where the shops of Italian food, real or alleged, are proliferating like tourist catcher traps, the presence of Eataly brings the discourse back to high levels of quality. If you want to have a snack, stop here, rather than in the “Italian pizza” stores or in the squalid American-like hamburger restaurants. The only possible alternative is to take a tour of the most popular points of Florence, in markets of San Lorenzo and Sant'Ambrogio to find real lampredotto and real local food.
Eataly opening hours:
shop: 10-22,30
restaurant: 12-15.30; 19-22
pizzeria and lampredotto: 12-22
