Il Ricettario — Restaurant in Florence

If I could describe Il Ricettario in two words, it would be "Fresh" and "Local." The food here was some of the freshest my wife and I tried in all of Italy, and we tried a LOT of fresh food in Italy!

The Caprese is a unique spin on the concept, serving it more like a true salad than the usual caprese (which focuses more on the bufala mozzarella than the greens) and it really worked quite well! The fresh greens paired well with the fresh bufala mozzarella and the fresh cut tomatoes. For our main dishes, we had the Tortelli Mugellani (a potato ravioli served with a meat sauce) and the Il Pici pasta (a style of noodle local to Florence that is similar to tonnarelli) served in a creamy basil herb sauce. Much like the caprese, the pastas at Il Ricettario focused on providing a unique flavor concept that truly stood out from many of the other meals we had in Italy - a great example of this would be the Il Pici pasta, which was served in a basil and herb sauce that allowed the other herbs to sing just as loud as the basil (which is not very common in Italy - most places we went that had a similar feeling dish almost always placed the emphasis on the basil exclusively).

The dessert was a standout as well, with us both getting the Tiramisu. The Tiramisu was of an extremely high quality, and definitely left us feeling happy, healthy, and full as we finished up our meal!

One last stand out thing about Il Ricettario is the service! Our server was attentive (more attentive than nearly any other server we had in Italy), pleasant, and an absolute bright spot on an already beautiful dinner. I really can't sing our servers praises enough, he was good enough to make some of the best servers in the U.S. feel jealous. (which we couldn't say for most restaurants we went to in Italy!)

Overall, Il Ricettario is a must visit restaurant in Florence - they serve fantastic food in a beautiful restaurant (see if you can get one of their outdoor seats when you visit!) and they really evoke the best qualities of local Florence cuisine...

Ordered the legume soup and my gf had the seafood pasta While these two dishes were good, the rest of the experience was quite lacking - their downstairs area has some odd TV playing low-resolution stock footage of some Nordic cabin, generic music, and seemingly only one waiter for at least 6 or 7 tables with maybe 20 place settings. No wonder he seemed to have absolutely no time on his hands, considering upstairs also only had one waiter. Bread was stale and nigh inedible, I've had better 70p Lidl ready sliced bread in the UK Waiter did not give us a bottle of olive oil despite every other table getting one, and there being many open bottles available. I won't complain more about the waiter, but it seemed like he almost gave up on serving us after we only ordered a soup and a pasta. Compared to the bread, the main course was quite good, my soup was made much better thanks to the spelt and olive oil in it and was a nice change from endless pasta while still keeping with Tuscan cuisine! The fish pasta was also highly rated by my gf (I'm vegetarian so can't comment) So it keeps a star for that one. However, I don't think the prices are in accordance with the food or the restaurant in general. I'm not sure if this is a problem of only Florence or only this restaurant, but I did not see dishes this expensive in Rome. Closing thoughts - not sure if the hype is deserved or not, maybe the waiter just had an off day. Give it a try yourself if you want, just maybe order a bit more...

This is, without a doubt, the best carbonara I have ever had in my life 💯 I even cut my trip to Siena short just to come back here for dinner and savor it a second time. On my last day in Firenze, I had to return once more because I simply couldn’t get it out of my mind. Now, it’s my second day in Rome—the birthplace of carbonara—and still, nothing I've tried here has come remotely close to the one I had at Il Ricettario. This restoranti has set the bar impossibly high; from now on, every time I eat carbonara, I'll be haunted by memories of this delight 😭 I'm literally looking at pictures of this carbonara while eating good carbonara in Rome; this low-key feels like I'm reminiscing about the 12/10 that got away while being in a comfortable relationship with an 8/10.

Apart from the carbonara, the rest of Il Ricettario's menu is incredible too. While I was here, my husband tried the Short Pasta Catch of the Day Fish, Lasagne Bolognese, and Long Pasta Basil And Mint Pesto, and loved each one. The tiramisu was also delightful—an ideal ending to our meal. If I could rate this place 6 out of 5 stars, I would. It’s beyond impeccable, truly the perfect carbonara. I would change nothing about it. Absolutely blown away, the best part of Italy so far. Wow, just...