The best handmade pasta in Florence: where to eat it — a pasta chef’s guide

I make pasta for a living, so when I eat out in Florence I’m the annoying one turning the pappardelle over with a fork to check the cut. Here’s what I actually look for — and where I’d send a friend with one free dinner in the city.

So where is the best pasta in Florence?

The short answer: not within sight of the Duomo. The best handmade pasta in Florence is in the trattorias around the Sant’Ambrogio market and in the Oltrarno around Santo Spirito — anywhere the menu is short, the pasta is named by its shape, and the room is full of Italians at 13:00. Order pici if you see them, pappardelle al cinghiale if it’s autumn. The long answer is the rest of this guide.

First: how to spot real handmade pasta on a menu

• The words matter. Pasta fresca means fresh pasta; fatta a mano or fatta in casa means made by hand, in house. A menu that names the shape and the flour (“pici di grano duro”) is usually a menu written by someone who made it.
• Short menus beat long ones. A kitchen hand-rolling pasta every morning can’t offer thirty shapes. Four or five fresh-pasta dishes that change with the season is the best sign there is.
• Look at the surface. Real hand-rolled pasta is slightly rough and irregular — that texture is what grips the sauce. Perfectly uniform strands were made by a machine somewhere far from the kitchen.
• Daily specials on a chalkboard usually mean the kitchen cooked what the market had. That’s how trattorias are supposed to work.

What to order in Florence

Florence is famously a meat city — the bistecca gets the postcards — but Tuscany’s fresh pasta tradition runs deep, and these are its greatest hits:

• Pici cacio e pepe or all’aglione — fat, hand-rolled ropes from the Sienese hills; the chew is the point. If pici are on the menu, order them.
• Pappardelle al cinghiale — wide egg ribbons with wild boar ragù. The classic Tuscan autumn plate, and the dish I’d use to judge any kitchen.
• Tortelli di patate — potato-filled parcels from the Mugello, north of the city, usually served with ragù or butter and sage. Humble and perfect.
• Tagliatelle ai funghi porcini — in late summer and autumn, when porcini are real, this is unbeatable.
• Ravioli ricotta e spinaci, burro e salvia — the gentle classic. Also look for gnudi — “naked” ravioli filling without the pasta, served the same way.

Where to look, neighbourhood by neighbourhood

Sant’Ambrogio. The market where Florentines shop (we take our own market class there) feeds the trattorias around it. Anywhere within two streets of the market that’s full of Italians at 13:00 is a safe bet.

The Oltrarno. Our side of the river — Santo Spirito and San Frediano — still has the highest density of honest kitchens in the centre. The piazza-side osterie around Santo Spirito are reliable for fresh pasta and local wine; we’ve written a full guide to spending a day in the Oltrarno.

The institutions. A few names every Florentine will argue about but everyone ends up at: Trattoria Mario by the Mercato Centrale (lunch only, shared tables, cash — go early), Trattoria Sostanza (tiny, historic, book ahead), and around Santo Spirito, Osteria Santo Spirito and the kitchens of Borgo San Jacopo. Hours and booking policies change — check before you cross town.

Three tourist-trap tells

1. Photos of the food laminated in the window.
2. A host outside inviting you in — full trattorias don’t need one.
3. “Fresh pasta” available in thirty shapes with any of twenty sauces, all day long. Fresh pasta kitchens run out; that’s how you know it was fresh.

The other option: eat the pasta you made

The best plate of handmade pasta in Florence is honestly the one you rolled yourself twenty minutes earlier — I’m biased, but our guests say it, not us. Every one of our classes ends exactly like a good trattoria lunch: your pasta, a Tuscan sauce, a glass of local wine, and nowhere to be for a while.