Trattoria Sabatino

There are places in Florence that exist primarily for tourists, and then there are places that exist for Florence. Trattoria Sabatino, tucked into the Oltrarno neighborhood of San Frediano, falls unmistakably into the second category - or at least, it used to. These days, thanks to a perfect storm of social media and the eternal quest of young American (and other) travelers for "authentic" experiences, you may find yourself standing in line to eat at what is, at its heart, a workers' cafeteria. This is not a slight, it's simply worth understanding before you arrive.

Sabatino belongs to a category of Florentine institution - alongside places like Leonardo Self Serve and sadly many tavola calda that are now long gone - that serves Tuscan food at its most elemental. Simple, honest, unfussy. The menu items don't surprise you (the fact that it appears to be hand typed usually surprises first timers), and they aren't trying to. The ribollita is good. The pappardelle al cinghiale is good. There are many classics and some old traditional dishes that many visitors may have not seen on other Tuscan menus, and they're all solid, and change often. The house Chianti arrives in a carafe and does its job. None of this is complicated, and that's the point. What is fascinating to me is that so many tourists have obviously never eaten a simple, solid, home made meal, and so have raised this place to legendary status (don't get me wrong - we used to eat there often and lived right down the street)!

Sabatino is open Monday through Friday, closed weekends - a schedule that tells you exactly who this place is for. It's a diner, not a destination restaurant. Walk sixty seconds up the street and you'll find Osteria Personale, which is a destination restaurant. Both are worth your time. They are just not the same thing. Go to Sabatino, eat well, spend very little, and appreciate it for what it actually is, but don't think your "off the beaten path" as so many YouTubers and social media accounts will tell you, Sabatino has been fully discovered!