Thanksgiving in Firenze

Every Thanksgiving morning I woke up, put on the parade, and helped my Mom cook a series of vegetable dishes, pies, and macaroni and cheese. This year was different. I was not awoken by the wafting aromas of cooking bacon and cinnamon and nutmeg fusing into a sinful pumpkin pie. Rather, I was awoken by my cellphone alarm indicating to me that it was time to hop aboard a train to Florence. 

I was lucky enough to have my family visit me for Thanksgiving, and I was sure to be strategic in choosing where we would have Thanksgiving dinner. After falling in love with rabbit and truffles in San Gimignano, I decided to try to persuade my parents that Florence, the biggest city in Tuscany, was the perfect destination for some Thanksgiving indulgences.

After doing a great bit of research on the web consulting many blogs, lists, and trip advisor reviews, I picked a restaurant that I felt was both modern and authentically Florentine: Osteria dell’Enoteca.

When we first walked into the trattoria we were greeted by the two staff members of the restaurant, the waiter and the bar tender aka the resident food expert and wine expert. After sitting down we noticed that the couple at the table next to us had an enormous and decadent looking T-Bone steak on their table and all of our mouth began to water.

My brother and I ordered four courses

each, while my grandparents and parents opted for a more conservative three. Since it was Thanksgiving and we are American we felt it would be inappropriate not to completely gorge ourselves with delicious foods, and gorge ourselves we did.

For my antipasto, I ordered an onion flan with creamy cheese, tomato, and a fried onion garnish. The flan was heavenly; it was smooth, creamy, rich with deep caramelized onion flavor; the tomato provided just the right touch of acidity while the fried onion had the perfect pop of texture. I cleaned my plate. My brother ordered beef tartare that was seasoned well and extremely fresh; however, the star of the table was the chicken liver pate that my grandmother ordered. It came with golden brown unsalted Tuscan style toast points and the livers themselves had so much flavor I never would have guessed they came from a chicken’s internal organs. They were so good we all almost returned the next day for a second helping.

Then for my primi piatti my brother and I shared the homemade papperdelle, an extremely wide yet thin pasta that is signature to the region of Tuscany, with a ragut of rabbit and pine nuts. Again, the dish was rich and decadent, but the pine nuts brought a fatty yet bright essence that made it impossible to take only one bite.

Then came the star of the show: two massive Florentine style T-Bone steaks cooked rare. They were massive, juicy, perfectly seasoned, and most importantly, tasted a thousand times better than any Thanksgiving turkey I have ever eaten. They exteriors of the steaks were kissed by the grill and were charred to perfection while the inside was not for the faint of heart as it is a sin to cook steak in Italy any more than medium rare. They were some of the highest quality steaks I have ever had.

It would be impossible to speak of the quality of this meal without mentioning the bottles of wine we ordered. Traditionally, we had a bottle of chianti and a bottle of borolla which hails from northern Italy. The chianti was a riserva from 2011 and it came frome the local Bucciarelli vineyard, just a short drive from Florence. It was crisp, light, a little fruity, and paired perfectly with the first few courses.  Then the borolla was a 2006 and was much richer and oakier; the perfect pairing for the steak.

After we drank all of the wine and picked the T-Bones clean, we ordered dessert. I have to admit, I was a bit bummed to be missing out on my favorite chocolate chip bourbon pecan pie, but the rosemary creme brulee I ordered helped me forget about the Thanksgiving FOMO that crept into the back of my mind. The creme brulee was aromatic with herbs and the texture was velvety and rich. Although I still wish the crystalized sugar had been caramelized for a moment longer, the dish was the perfect ending to an unconventional Thanksgiving dinner.