Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Where to eat in Florence?

One of the best meals we had on our whole trip to Italy ws in Florence at
Il Guscio Via dell' Orto, 49. phone: 055-224421. It's of teh beaten rack in the Oltrano and well worth seeking out. Here's the review from my trip report:

That evening we had a reservation at Il Guscio (thank you Ekscrunchy!) This turned out to be one our best meals and if you are in Florence you must eat here. It’s on the south side of the Arno in a neighborhood a little off the beaten path in the Oltrarno. Via dell' Orto, 49. phone: 055-22442 (closed Sundays and Mondays, only open for dinner.) It was a lovely 30 minute walk from our B&B (we walked almost everywhere which allowed us to eat the ay we did and not gain a pound over the whole vacation!)

The place is quite small and the staff is very friendly. Reservations are imperative as the place was completely full and they were turning people away. The night we were there, there was a party of 16, a big Italian family having a celebration dinner. Most of the patrons were locals with one party of tourists from England who were drinking a number of serious bottles of wine. The whole atmosphere was festive. Very casual, but festive.

We started with the house special antipasti, a plate with a wild mushroom terrine, a packet of robiola cheese baked in filo dough drizzled with real balsamic, and a slice of eggplant with tomato and mozzarella baked in a filo basket. Fantastic. We then had an order of bistecca Florentine. It’s sold by the weight here, a minimum of 1 K, (2.2 lbs) for 40 E. They brought out the piece of meat they were going to cook for us and what a gorgeous piece of beef it was. They cooked it perfectly rare, intense grilled flavor on the outside, tender and juicy inside. It was so good we almost finished this ridiculously huge piece of meat! We also had an order of spinach, the best spinach I’ve ever eaten, dripping good olive oil and redolent of garlic. Mmmm. I can still taste that dinner.

Il Gucio offered a number of very fine wines by the glass as opposed to just a house wine so my husband was able to have 2 glasses of a very special wine (I don’t drink alcohol) that were a perfect compliment to the steak.

Even after eating all this food, we managed to have in one dessert between us and it was scrumptious. It was fresh cooked pear and almond paste in puff pastry with a scoop of rich chocolate gelato all drizzled with a dark chocolate sauce. Two espressos were the perfect cap to a most wonderful meal. With a bottle of water the bill was 78 E. Highest recommendations for Il Guscio!