Florence Street Food Tour: Is It Worth It?

The listing promises traditional Tuscan food from local shops, many of them family-run businesses handed down over generations. Three tastings are named outright: schiacciata, the traditional local specialty, paired with Tuscan wine; cantucci with vin santo; and fresh homemade pasta.

The list ends with “and much more”, so expect more than these three, though the listing does not say how many stops there are. The places visited can change with the season, so the exact route is not fixed in advance.

Between tastings, the guide walks the group around the Duomo area, with the Dome, the Cathedral and the Baptistery, and on to Ponte Vecchio, telling the story of Florence and its food along the way. That makes a Florence street food tour half a meal and half a first look at the historic centre.

The two pasta classes are priced at $40 per person each, and they make for a different kind of evening. On the pasta class you make three kinds of fresh pasta, such as ravioli, tortelli and pappardelle, with sauces like butter and sage or Tuscan ragù, in a cooking school inside a medieval tower close to Brunelleschi’s Dome. A chef teaches each step, and you eat everything you cook with Tuscan wine.

The pasta and tiramisu class takes 3 hours in a local restaurant in the centre: fresh pasta from scratch, a tiramisu, then the meal with wine and a coffee or limoncello to finish. It also lists vegan and lactose-intolerant options, which the street food walk does not.

A Florence street food tour gives you what a class cannot: the streets, the market on a morning walk, and the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio between bites. If cooking is the point, our guide to the cooking classes compares both in detail.

Yes, if you want to taste and see in one go. At $47 per person, the walk gives you 2.5 hours with a local guide, local specialties with Tuscan wine, and the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio on the way, rated 4.8 from 1,950 reviews. Book a morning start for the market.

Would you rather cook? Pick one of the two pasta classes at $40 per person.

A 2.5-hour walk leaves the rest of your stay open for a longer outing. Our top pick is the Cinque Terre and Pisa trip at $100 per person: a coach to La Spezia, the train along the coast to Vernazza and Monterosso, then time on your own at Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa. Compare it with the other trips in our full list.