We will be in Florence May 9-13th.
When planning a trip to Lisbon last year, the wise folks on this forum advised to make dinner reservations in advance, as the restaurants are small and fill up quickly. The advice was spot on and very much appreciated.
What about Florence? We aren't looking for fine dining/Michelin stars - but we do want to eat good food for dinner. Do you recommend reservations?

Yes, make reservations. It is considered impolite not to have one.

The good restaurants fill up quickly. The lousy ones don't.

We dine out 30-50 times a year in (mostly) France. We use the Michelin Guide to choose restaurants, and have rarely/almost never been disappointed. A few times (decades ago) when we followed recommendations in a food magazine, or just ate at the "place down the street", we have been disappointed. Two of those were in Florence (5 years ago). We never seek advice from Yelp or TripAdvisor. They seem to favor pancake houses (in the US), ice cream stores, or steak joints. We book weeks in advance.

About 10 years ago, our closest friends (annual visitors to Europe - owned an apt in Tuscany) met us in Paris. They don't book in advance. We had lunch together at a "mediocre/simple C- restaurant" in the Marais. We had other dinner plans that night. For their dinner, they wandered around trying to find a place to eat. All "nice looking" restaurant were "complet". They returned to the same C- simple restaurant where we had lunch, and had the exact same meal for dinner (Confit de Canard).

Stu Dudley

Without question, yes. I was there a couple weeks ago and needed dinner reservations. La Giostra required booking no later than one day before. I imagine Florence will be far more crowded in May than it was in January.

Also, two of the places we ate at had a booking fee. The amount was small ($10/$15), but it is a thing.

We were there this past May. Definitely needed reservations.

Absolutely!