Mystery Critic
The Best Restaurants Out There - And Much More!
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Osteria Pepo, Florence, Italy Last Visit: Nov 2007 It's our last night in Florence. We made a reservation at Il Latini, but we ran in bit late (see reason in our trip journal), so we decided to walk around to find a nice and local place to eat. We ran into Osteria Pepo, which I read about somewhere that their bistecca floretina is good. It turned out that the steak was indeed very good - probably a bit better than the one we had in Messere, and overall it was a good dining experince. Osteria Pepo has the same virtue - and issue - as many other Florentine restaurants in the city center - it's VERY obviously that is catered towards tourists. The food was overall well-prepared with fresh and good-quality ingredients, but the menu is a bit "typical" and and presentation is the usual "Italian-casual". This is the second restaurant where we had our bistecca florentina, and it was better than the first place. The steak was brought out on a hot place, which is a big plus given that a thick slice of beef that is RAW should at least be hot instead of cold (YUK!). The important thing is that the meat was juicy and fragrant, different from typical steaks in the US. We had some usual appetizers and pastas - including mixed crostinis which was very small and white beans with caviar (you either love it or hate it) - that were good but not amazing good, we also tried their braised tripes dish. It was done with tomatoes and some spices. I think we are much more used to tripes in some sort of spicy sauce - having it in a bland sauce just taste funny.
There are some waiters and waitresses that speak REALLY good English. That's usually a bad sign (i.e. only tourists follow tour guides come to this place), but hey after six days in Italy, I can use some English. The wait staff is, again, typical. They are reasonably courteous and efficient, and in our case they were on the fast side because they probably want to go home. Not much ambience to speak of - a small yet charming and cozy restaurant. Italians do have a way to make a small space look and feel comfortable. Compared to Za-Za, it has next to no decorations; but then again, WHY would I want to have all my meals under large hams and bottles on walls? VALUE The value of this place is nothing short of SPECTACULAR. For 30 Euros you can have very good food and wine! The wine prices on wall look like mistakes - I mean, 15 Euros for a very good chianti? No wonder Italians drink themselves to death.... BOTTOMLINE If you expect Tuscan cuisine to blow you away, then you're probably in the wrong place. If you want to have a nice and comfortable dinner that is not going to break you bank, this is a good place. I would go back again if it's a late night and I just want to have some soul food - Italian style of course - to warm my stomach. BTW It opens kind of late, like 1 at least later than most of the places around the Mercato Lorenzo area. It's strange that these restaurants don't open till that late given that tourists can have rather erratic schedules like we did.
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