Tuscan Feasts

The dining prices categories above (and throughout this site) represent a rough estimate of how much, per person, you would pay for a standard Italian meal—which is to say three courses with a bottle of water and the house wine.

(A truly "full" Italian meal really consists of five courses—antipasto/appetizer, primo/first course, secondo/main course, contorno/side, and dolce/dessert—but few actually splurge on the whole, belt-busting thing at every meal. Select any three of your choosing and call it dinner. Espresso and digestivo at the end are extra.)

If we're talking about something other than a full-service, sit-down restaurant (pizzeria, sandwich shop, Venetian cichetti bar, or some other lighter-fare establishment), the price category will be for whatever constitutes a "full meal" there (a pizza and a beer, 5–10 cicchetti and a glass of wine, etc.). This is why every gelateria on this site is ranked "€."

Then again, if some old-school 19th century caffè on the main piazza charges four or five times what a typical bar does for a cappucino (and they do tend to), I'm slapping it with a "€€" even if your bill does come to under €15 a head because, relatively spekaing, it's really pricey.

That said, nothing is more variable than what you will spend to eat out. You may show up at a moderately priced restaurant and splurge on a truly full Italian meal of five courses (including the priciest seafood or steak dishes on the menu), plus dessert, grappa, espresso, and an expensive bottle of wine or two.

Your abstemious neighbor at the next table might just have a plate of spaghetti and a bottle of water.

Your bills will be radically different, even though you ate at the same place.

Splurge at your own discretion.

(In case you are curious how I estimate the costs, decades of writing travel guidebooks led me to a surprisingly accurate formula—at least for Italy. Average the price of the cheapest and most expensive primo on the menu—ignoring any obvious outliers, like a spaghetti with lobster that costs twice what everything else does. Now multiply that average by four. The result is amazingly close to the cost of a full meal at that restaurant.)

This is the defining factor of Florence tourism: the city gets nearly the same number of visitors as Rome or Venice, yet is a fraction the size. That means lines for everything—and a good incentive to book ahead for meals as frequently as possible. There simply is too much demand for all the good places.

• Order the steak ahead: If you are planning on having a bistecca fiorentina, ask for it when you call for you're reservation. This is only necessary in some place, but it pays to check. (Some joints even insist you order it a day ahead of time.)

• "Pane e coperto" is not a scam: Nearly all Italian restaurants have an unavoidable pane e coperto ("bread and cover" charge) of anything from €1 to €15—though most often €2 to €5—per person that is automatically added onto your bill. This is perfectly normal and perfectly legal (though a few trendy restaurants make a big deal about not charging it).
• Find out if service (tip) is included: Don't double-tip by accident. If the menu has a line—usually near the bottom of the front or back—that says "servizio" with either a percentage, an amount, or the word "incluso" after it, that means the tip is automatically included in the price. (If it says "servizio non incluso," tip is, obviously, not included.)
  
  Even if the menu doesn't say it, ask É incluso il servizio? (ay een-CLOU-so eel sair-VEET-zee-yo)—"Is service included?" If not, tip accordingly (10%–15% is standard).
  
  Don't be stingy about tipping, though. If il servizio is, indeed, already included but the service was particularly good, it's customary to round up the bill or leave €1 per person extra—just to show you noticed and that you appreciated the effort.
• Tourist menus: The concept of a bargain prix-fixe menu is not popular in Italy. Some restaurants do offer a menu turistico ("tourist menu"), which can cost from €8 to €20 and usually entails a choice from among two or three basic first courses (read: different pasta shapes, all in plain tomato sauce), a second course of roast chicken or a veal cutlet, and some water or wine and bread. With very few exceptions, tourist menus tend to live up to their name, appearing only at the sort of tourist-pandering restaurants that the locals wisely steer clear of.
  
  However, a menu à prezzo fisso ("fixed-price menu") is often a pretty good deal, usually offering a bit more choice than a tourist menu.
  
  Then—especially at nicer (and pricier) restaurants—there is the menu degustazione ("tasting menu"), usually far more expensive (anywhere from €25 to €110) that is a showcase of the chef's best, or of regional specialties, and can make for an excellent way to sample the kitchen's top dishes.
• Book ahead: For restaurants that I am truly eager to try, I go ahead and book a table—at least at dinner. I find that a corollary of Murphy's Law seems to apply. If you prudently book ahead, you are likely to show up to a half-empty restaurant and feel a bit like a fool for having worried about finding a table. If, on the other hand, you just show up at the door expecting to find a free table, the place will inevitably be packed and its bookings full for the evening.

• Basic phrases (below)
• Italian dishes, cooking terms, & menu vocab