Florence feeds itself from markets, carts and counters. But the city's food has a lost center. Its old market, the Mercato Vecchio, stood right in the heart of town, among medieval towers and workshops. In the late nineteenth century the city tore it all down. By then, new iron-and-glass market halls had already opened to feed the city. This walk follows that story with your mouth full. You start in the great Central Market with a sandwich of boiled beef or tripe, dipped in broth. You eat a dainty truffle panino on the smartest street in town, then stand on the square where the old market used to be. You queue at a tripe cart by a bronze boar, share a famous sandwich on Via dei Neri, and get gelato through a hole in a palace wall. And you finish at the neighborhood market of Sant'Ambrogio, where one beautiful piece of the old market survives just around the corner. It's one of our self-guided walking tours, about 2.6 kilometers from the Mercato Centrale to the Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio.

Before you set off

The walking takes about 40 minutes, but with tastings, allow three hours. The route is flat, on paved streets and stone sidewalks, and the start is about 400 meters from Santa Maria Novella station. Go Tuesday to Saturday, and start by about 10:00 in the morning. Sunday doesn't work, because the Sant'Ambrogio market and Nerbone's ground-floor counter are closed. Vivoli is reportedly closed on Mondays. The markets also wind down in the early afternoon, so aim to reach Sant'Ambrogio before 14:00. You pay for your own food at every stop. Seven tastings is a lot, so share sandwiches, take the smallest cups, and pace yourself. This is a walk for people who don't mind offal: the Florentine classics include cow's stomach, and the tripe carts are part of the fun. Offal, pork, nuts, dairy and gluten are everywhere, so if you have an allergy, ask at each counter. Trattoria da Rocco, an option at the end, is cash only. Hours change, and the listings for some of these stops disagree, so check before you go.

Mercato Centrale

You're standing outside the Mercato Centrale, Florence's Central Market. Take a step back on the square and look at the building: a great hall of cast iron and glass.

It was designed by Giuseppe Mengoni, the architect who also designed the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele the Second in Milan. It opened in 1874 with an international agricultural exhibition, at a time when Florence was the capital of Italy. Inside, the ground floor still has the traditional stalls: meat, fish and produce. Upstairs is a modern food hall.

Your stop is on the ground floor, at Da Nerbone. The stall dates itself to 1872. Notice the puzzle in that: the hall itself opened in 1874. So whatever Nerbone was in 1872, it wasn't in this building yet. The date is the stall's own.

What it serves is the workers' sandwich of Florence: a bun filled with boiled beef, called bollito, or with lampredotto, the cow's fourth stomach, cooked in broth. The magic word is bagnato, which means wet. Ask for it bagnato, and the top of the bun is dipped in the broth. Then it gets salsa verde, the green sauce, and chilli if you want heat.

What to order here: a panino con bollito or a panino con lampredotto, bagnato, with salsa verde and chilli. You'll meet lampredotto again soon, so if you want to compare, take the boiled beef here.

Now from the workers' market to the smart set. Head south past the church of San Lorenzo, then work southwest toward Piazza Antinori, where Via de' Tornabuoni begins. Procacci is a short way down, at number 64. About eight minutes.

Procacci

An elegant shopping street in central Florence

You're on Via de' Tornabuoni, Florence's most elegant shopping street, outside number 64r. Step into Procacci, a small wood-paneled bar and delicatessen.

Leopoldo Procacci founded it in 1885. In 1925 he received the royal coat of arms and patent from King Victor Emmanuel the Third, a royal warrant. Today it's run by the Antinori wine family.

After the bun soaked in broth at the market, this is the opposite end of Florentine eating. Nerbone's sandwich is the workers' lunch. Procacci's is a little truffle panino with a glass of wine, for the smart set on a smart street. Both are Florence, and the walk between them takes less than ten minutes.

Take a moment to look around the small paneled room. The point here is not to fill up. It's one little sandwich, and you still have five stops to go.

What to order here: a panino tartufato, the little truffle panino, with a glass of wine if it's not too early for you.

Next, the square where the old market used to be. Walk east along Via degli Strozzi, about three minutes, and it opens into Piazza della Repubblica. Caffè Gilli is on the square, with a clock over its door.

Caffè Gilli

You're on Piazza della Repubblica, outside Caffè Gilli, the grand café with the clock over the door. Now look across the square for a tall stone column. That's the Column of Abundance.

Gilli opened in 1733, founded by the Swiss Gilli family as a bottega dei pani dolci, a sweet-bread shop. It started on Via dei Calzaiuoli and only moved to this square later. Sources disagree on when.

The square around you is the heart of this walk's story. This was the Mercato Vecchio, the old market. It stood on the site of the Roman forum, and the Column of Abundance marks the spot where the two main streets of Roman Florence crossed. This was once a dense knot of medieval towers, workshops, market stalls and the Jewish ghetto. The fish market stood here too, under a loggia designed by Giorgio Vasari.

Then, from 1885 to 1895, the city demolished it. The towers, the workshops, the market and the ghetto were cleared, and this wide, open square was built in their place. When you stand here, you're standing on the old center of Florence, and there's almost nothing left of it to see. Remember Vasari's fish loggia. You'll meet it again at the end of the walk.

What to order here: an espresso and a pastry at the counter. The house Gilli cake is a good choice.

Next, an older market loggia that did survive, with a tripe cart beside it. Walk south from the square down Via Calimala, about three minutes, to the open stone loggia of the Mercato Nuovo.