What's the food culture in Florence?

Florence runs on a tighter meal clock than Rome or Naples. Breakfast is a cornetto and caffè at the bar counter, standing, 2-3€ total, done by 8:30am. Lunch service opens at 12:30 and the kitchen closes by 2:30. Show up at 1:45 at Trattoria Mario on Via Rosina and you'll wait 20 minutes for a shared table. Show up at 2:15 and the door is locked. Dinner starts at 7:30 in the tourist zone near Basilica of Santa Croce, but Florentines sit down closer to 8:30 or 9pm. The gap between lunch and dinner belongs to gelato and schiacciata, the flat, olive-oil-heavy bread sold at Forno Top on Via della Spada for 2.50€ a slab. That mid-afternoon schiacciata, warm and crackly on top, soft and salty inside, might be the best single bite in the city.

Two markets, two different experiences. Mercato Centrale near San Lorenzo has operated from the same cast-iron building since 1874. The ground floor still has butchers, cheese vendors, and produce stalls where you can smell aged pecorino before you see it. Perini sells wild-boar salami for about 28€ per kilo and will vacuum-seal it for your flight home. The upstairs food hall, renovated in 2014, is cleaner and pricier at 10-15€ per plate, and feels like a food court. Skip upstairs for meals. Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio in the Santa Croce district is where Florentine cooks actually shop. It's smaller, louder, and the fish counter smells like the Tyrrhenian Sea at low tide. Trattoria da Rocco operates from a counter inside the market and serves ribollita, the twice-boiled bread-and-kale soup, for 5€ in a plastic bowl. You eat at communal benches. The soup is thick enough to hold a spoon upright. That is the correct texture.

The centro storico between Florence Cathedral and Ponte Vecchio is the worst place to eat in the city. Menus in 6 languages, photos of the dishes laminated on the door, 18€ for spaghetti bolognese, a dish that does not exist in Tuscany. Cross the Arno into Oltrarno and the prices drop by a third or more. Trattoria Sabatino on Via Pisana has served a 3-course pranzo for under 15€ since 1956, wine included. The room smells like yesterday's ragu and the fluorescent lights do nothing for the ambiance, but the peposo, a black-pepper beef stew from Impruneta, is dense and slow-cooked and good enough to forgive the decor. In San Frediano, Il Magazzino serves lampredotto, the fourth stomach of the cow, slow-simmered, in a sit-down setting for about 8€. The texture is slippery and gelatinous. Some people hate it. Order it anyway, because every lampredotto cart between here and Palazzo Vecchio is selling the same cut for 5€ with less care.

Bistecca alla fiorentina is the dish that defines the city, and the one most likely to disappoint if you order it wrong. It is a Chianina-breed T-bone, cut 3 fingers thick at about 5-6cm, cooked rare over oak or olive-wood coals, served by weight. At Da Burde in the Rifredi district, 4km north of the Duomo, expect to pay around 50-55€ per kilo for a 1.2kg steak, so 60-66€ for the cut, enough for 2 people. The steak arrives with no sauce and no garnish, and the crust crackles when you press the flat of your knife against it. Ask for it medium and the kitchen will likely refuse, or give you a look that makes refusal unnecessary. Pair it with a Chianti Classico Riserva from Castellina or Radda, 25-35€ a bottle at restaurant markup. Rosso di Montalcino runs cheaper at 18-22€ and holds up to the char.