Kitsch 2 — Restaurant in Florence

Don't get confused by the first impression! While it might look old from the outside and as a bar from the inside, Kitsch offers more than you can see from the first glance.

Restaurant offers "All you can eat" for dirt cheap (14€) compared to any other restaurant I found in Firenze. The "catch" is that you have to order any drink. This is typically called in Italy as "Aperitivo". It will be explained by the waitress upon entry, don't worry.

Without the food the drink starts from 8€. If you want to have the food with it, it's always 14€ no matter what drink you choose.

The waitress was SUPER kind. As a tourist I was confused how exactly it works but the waitress explained everything super clearly and fast.

Turns out they don't have drink menu on paper but you have to download their application from Google Play/App Store called "Kitsch Firenze". While the app doesn't really look nice it does the job. After choosing you tell the waitress what you want. After getting your drink you are now allowed to get your plate (unfortunately paper plate. If the plate get's too wet you can ask for new one for 0,50€.)

Kitsch offers wide variety of food to grab. From spaghetti to chicken nuggets. Food is being served to your plate by kind waitress so you can't grab everything at once haha. After you eat all, you are allowed to replenish it again.

Don't worry if you think that they'll run out of xyz. Food is being constantly replenished and sometimes they even add different types.

I can't recommend anything because I tried to taste everything and all I can say that everything was good! You won't be disappointed.

The best thing is that the food is being served also at night which almost no other restaurant does other than some fast food chains. At 8 pm, Kitsch was only half full.

The only drawback is their toilets. There is only 1 toilet for men and women. The sink is made out of some old rusty machinery. Unfortunately it is really rust so don't try to lean on it otherwise you'll be more dirty than before. The weird/funny thing is that the faucet valve is mounted on mirror, never seen that before haha.

10/10 will...

If you love being ignored and cut in line, this is the perfect place to go, tourists beware. I’ll cut to the chase, they don’t like you.

I was very excited to try apertivo and heard this place near our hotel had a decent one. This was my experience trying apertivo for the first time ever which is very unfortunate. When I went up to the serving area, there was someone being served by a man in front of me. The area was a little cramped and, wanting to be polite, I left some room for the servers to go back and forth, to and from the kitchen. While the person in front of me was being served, a group of five people saw me standing there and went in front of me, filling the space where staff were meant to go back and forth- even going so far as to push me back a bit. The man serving apertivo saw what happened and did not intervene so I had to take it upon myself and get my spot back. The group of five proceeded to snicker at me and make rude comments. I felt so uncomfortable ordering after being allowed to be treated like that by the staff here, I honestly just wanted to pay for my prosecco and leave right then and there. The food was totally mediocre- not the best, not the worst. Maybe they don’t want you going back for more too many times? This city was the ninth on my itinerary and I have not encountered anything like this before. In my own line of work, I deal with customers and queues. I would never allow for this type of behavior or for one customer to treat another in this fashion (and trust me, they try). I’m writing this review to let the restaurant know how this type of thing can affect an experience and warn any other tourists of this possibility. However, looking at some of the other reviews on here, it is obvious they do not care. They are located in a dense area and tourists are bound to waltz in.

If this sounds like the type of experience you would like to have, by all means, go here. You can also read other reviews and see I am not the only one who has had this type of experience if just my word...

This place was never classy, but at least it offered good value for money. After the lockdowns however, they have severely limited the aperitivo, (allegedly due to "safety reasons", but really just to cut costs) which is unfortunate considering that the food buffet was their one strong selling point. Now, instead of being allowed to fill your plate with whatever you want, whenever you want, a person curates what you are allowed to have. For e.g., you may only get a very small helping of each dish on your plate each time you queue up, though they will fill your plate to the brim if you're mixing different items. This means that if you'd only like to eat, say, pasta, that's tough luck: you'll only get three strings of spaghetti and will have to do the line ALL OVER AGAIN (5+ mins) for another serving. This is incredibly frustrating not the least because of how illogical and arbitrary it is. Why can't I stack up several (tiny) portions of one food I particularly like in one run, instead of having to mix things that I don't think go well together? The only reason I can think of is that they are deliberately trying to make it difficult/frustrating for you to eat so that you will leave sooner. If that was their objective then they succeded, but then why offer aperitivo at all? On top of that, the drinks were brought at snails pace (15-20 min, and the place wasn't even packed), you "could not pay separately" (so I had to pay for 8 people, 5 of which I had never seen before in my life and now have to chase for a refund), and the bartender said that my mask was "disgusting" because it had the emblem of a sports team he obviously disliked.This was after just having swiped my card for 90€. I appreciate some friendly banter, but within reasonable limits and definitely not by strangers who have just ripped me off for food in the cheapest way possible. Avoid this place like the plague unless you have zero self respect and enjoy waiting in...