Tuscany Food & Wine Travel Guide

Tuscany is, for many food travelers, the pinnacle of Italian cuisine — a region where the landscape, the agriculture, and the table exist in perfect harmony. Florence, the region’s capital, is home to one of Italy’s most iconic dishes: bistecca alla Fiorentina, a thick-cut T-bone from the Chianina breed of cattle, seasoned with nothing but salt, olive oil, and wood smoke. Around it, the city’s food market — the Mercato Centrale — is a two-storey shrine to Tuscan produce: lampredotto (tripe) sandwiches, fresh porcini, aged pecorino, wild boar salami, and ribollita, the thick bread-and-vegetable soup that is Tuscany’s greatest comfort food.

Beyond Florence, the Tuscan countryside is one of the world’s great wine landscapes. The Chianti Classico zone between Florence and Siena produces some of Italy’s most beloved Sangiovese-based reds; Montalcino, further south, is home to Brunello, Italy’s most celebrated and age-worthy wine. In autumn, the forests around San Miniato yield white truffles that are shaved over pasta and eggs and sold at prices that rival saffron. The olive oil pressed from Tuscany’s ancient groves is among the finest in the world — peppery, grassy, and luminously green at harvest. Tuscany doesn’t just feed you; it converts you.