Chef Russell Norman, 57, knew that he had to write a book on the food of Florence when, standing in the middle of the city’s Piazza della Signoria, he began having heart palpitations and almost fainted. “It’s called Stendhal syndrome,” he explains, sipping a glass of prosecco outside his trattoria, Brutto, in Smithfield, central London. “It’s the reaction to stupefying beauty; when you get to a place and just can’t handle it.”
Norman had experienced it before in Venice, the city that inspired his first three cookbooks as well as the Polpo restaurant group, which he ran with his business partner, Richard Beatty, from 2009 until he stood down 11 years later.
“That’s when I knew there was something very, very special about Florence. That moment was my sign that I needed to explore more of the city.”
The best way to think about food across Italy is to imagine a patchwork of lots of little countries. “There are 20 regions in Italy and when it comes to their food they are all different,” Norman says. “Too often in the UK you get Italian restaurants that serve the Top of the Pops greatest hits of the country’s food and ignore how regional it is.”
While seafood is at the heart of cooking in Venice and its islands, in Florence, which is slap bang in the middle of Tuscany, it is all about meat. “It’s surrounded by rural countryside so it’s got very different credentials,” he continues.
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Florence is about “nose-to-tail” cooking. Yes, it’s famous for its massive bistecca alla fiorentina steaks, but also for its tripe, which Norman discovered while exploring the city’s Mercato Centrale in 2018. “I love how they celebrate offal in Florence. I had tripe served in little sandwiches with chilli sauce and salsa verde.”
There were also pasta dishes such as pappardelle with rabbit and tagliatelle ragu, and a Florentine staple called peposo, a slow-cooked stew of beef shin and peppercorns.
Brutto means “ugly”. “There is an Italian expression, brutti ma buoni, which means ugly but good, which is used to describe your grandmother’s cooking,” Norman explains. “It’s not Michelin-star aspiration or cheffy. It’s really simple, mostly brown food that looks terrible but tastes amazing. I think people want that style of home cooking.”
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Norman has a track record of predicting what people want to eat. When the original Polpo opened in Soho in 2009, it was one of the few restaurants to operate under a no-reservations policy. With its bare brick walls and low-hanging lighting, it became an unofficial blueprint for cool neighbourhood eateries. Perhaps Polpo’s most lasting impact was that all the dishes were served sharing-style.
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“I know, I opened a Pandora’s box,” he says. “If you go to trattorias in Florence, people never share. They all have their own courses.” At Brutto, the menu follows the classic Italian four-course format: antipasti, primi, secondi and dolci.
Norman’s new book, also Brutto, has pages of recommendations for restaurants and bars in Florence, from pitstops in between galleries to trattorias to spend an evening in.
“My overarching advice if you are in Tuscany is to seek out those places that have local classics on the menu. If you go anywhere that has pasta and pizza, or dishes from northern Italy like Piedmont or Lombardy, then avoid them. Those restaurants are just serving the greatest hits. Look for places that are specific and local,” he says. “God forbid the menu has pictures on.” Hannah Evans
Tuna, white bean and shallot salad
Serves 4
Insalata di tonno, cannellini e cipolle: this salad is typically Tuscan. If you spend a little more on an excellent-quality tinned tuna it will make the salad all the better. I particularly like white tuna, which comes in jars and is satisfyingly chunky.
Ingredients
2 x 400g tins of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Extra virgin olive oil
Red wine vinegar
2 shallots, very finely sliced
Flaky sea salt
Black pepper
A handful of flat parsley leaves, chopped
2 x 112g tins of tuna
Method
1. Place the drained and rinsed cannellini beans into a large mixing bowl and add a few glugs of olive oil and a good splash of red wine vinegar. Add one of the finely sliced shallots, a couple of pinches of salt and a twist or two of black pepper. Stir to incorporate. Add the chopped parsley and stir several times again. Leave for 5 minutes.
2. Drain any liquid from the tuna. Evenly share the cannellini mix between four wide bowls. Carefully distribute the chunks of tuna over each bowl, being careful to keep the flesh as intact as possible. Scatter over the remaining slices of shallot evenly and finish with a delicate drizzle of olive oil.
Ribbons of beef with wilted bitter leaves
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Serves 4
Or tagliata di manzo con radicchio. The variations of steak preparation in Florence and beyond prove how important beef is to the region. Tagliata ― strips or ribbons ― make a dish that is less daunting than a huge slab of meat and easier to eat with just a fork. The result is more salad-like and somehow lighter but without compromising on succulence and flavour. This is best made with very good-quality sirloin, already cut into flat steak shapes. Look for higher-welfare, 30-day-aged beef and make sure you remove it from the fridge half an hour before you want to cook.
Ingredients
1 head of radicchio ― Treviso or Chioggia
Extra virgin olive oil
2 x 400g sirloin steaks
Flaky sea salt
Black pepper
A handful of flat parsley leaves, finely chopped
Remove the hard base of the radicchio and slice the leaves into ribbons. Set aside.
Method
1. Heat a few glugs of olive oil in a very large frying pan over a high heat. Season each side of the steaks with salt and pepper and sear on all sides, including the strip of fat, until nicely browned, about 2 minutes. Turn down the heat a little and cook for a further 4-5 minutes, turning frequently. If you like, you can make a little incision to check the colour of the meat inside. It should be very pink but not blue. Remove from the pan and rest for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add a splash more oil to the same pan and gently cook the shredded radicchio in the meat juices. Wilt for around 4 minutes, stirring and tossing. Remove from the heat and drain any excess oil.
3. Remove and discard the fat from the steaks, then slice into fine ribbons. Place the wilted radicchio on four warmed plates and evenly distribute the slices of pink, juicy steak. Add a twist of black pepper and a scattering of chopped parsley and serve.
Lemon and vodka smoothie
Makes 4
You could quite justifiably enjoy a sgroppino on its own as a cooling aperitivo, but it is mostly served after a meal as a clean and zingy dessert. In restaurants and trattorias you will often see it made tableside by the waiter. It is important that the ingredients are incorporated fully, resulting in a pure white foam rather than a sad glass of supercharged prosecco with a floating iceberg of sorbet.
Make sure the prosecco is in the fridge and the bottle of vodka is in the freezer at least 1½ hours before you make these. I put the wine glasses in the freezer too, particularly on a warm day.
Ingredients
400g lemon sorbet
100ml vodka
200ml prosecco
Method
Put the sorbet, vodka and prosecco into a large bowl. Using a stick blender or a whisk, combine everything thoroughly to create a smooth, creamy, foamy consistency. Transfer to a large jug and pour into four chilled wine glasses. Serve with a teaspoon, although it is perfectly acceptable to drink straight from the glass.
Alternative Use Campari instead of vodka for a delightfully bitter aperitivo or digestivo.
Florentine T-bone steak
Enough for 2 to share
There is no dish that typifies Florentine cooking more famously than bistecca alla fiorentina. It is on the menu in virtually every restaurant and trattoria in Florence. Sometimes referred to as porterhouse, the distinctive T-shaped bone separates two beautifully thick flanks of meat, which means that these steaks are always huge. A Florentine friend told me that it’s not considered truly Florentine unless it’s more than 1kg.
In Florence, the tradition is to cook these massive chops very rare, almost blue, in fact. I prefer rare to medium-rare, still bloody and delicious. The trick is to make sure you only buy 30-day-aged meat and to obey two other rules: remove the steak from the fridge at least half an hour before you want to cook it, and rest for at least 15 minutes after grilling. Otherwise the meat feels tough and you end up with a puddle of blood.
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The other advice I have been given is to consider heat as a seasoning. Apart from the steak, there are only two other elements here: fire and salt.
Ingredients
800g-1kg T-bone steak
Flaky sea salt
Method
1. Remove the steak from the fridge 30 minutes before you want to cook it. Heat a large nonstick frying pan. When it’s really hot, place the steak in the pan. Leave for 5 or 6 minutes. Turn it over and do the same on the other side. Then stand it upright and allow it to cook vertically for 3 or 4 minutes. Don’t be tempted to use oil at any stage. The meat will not stick. (If the weather allows, fire up a barbecue and follow the same cooking instructions.)
2. Press the meat with your finger. It should feel like muscle, not like soft flesh. Transfer it to a chopping board and leave for 15 minutes, loosely covered with foil.
3. Remove the foil and cut the meat off the bone into large bite-sized pieces. Transfer to a warmed sharing plate and cover both sides with liberal amounts of crushed flaky sea salt. Traditionally bistecca is seasoned afterwards, not before. Serve with a simple green salad. These steaks are never served with sauce.
Lamb chops wrapped in paper
Serves 4
This is a lovely dish when new-season lamb arrives in the shops. When lambs are around six months old, in September or October, the flesh has a fuller flavour, more meaty and less milky, so it’s a great dish for autumn too.
Ingredients
2 ripe, medium tomatoes, quartered
4 small onions, peeled and halved
Flaky sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil
8 lamb chops
16 tinned anchovy fillets
A handful of green beans, trimmed
2 garlic cloves, very finely sliced
A small handful of oregano leaves
Black pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6. Take four very large squares of greaseproof paper and evenly distribute the tomatoes and onions between them, with a good pinch of salt. Heat a frying pan and add a good glug or two of olive oil. When the oil is hot, brown the lamb chops, no more than a minute each side.
2. Now lay 2 chops in the centre of each sheet, with 2 anchovy fillets on top of the meat, and evenly share out the green beans. Scatter over the sliced garlic and oregano leaves.
3. Season with sea salt and pepper and drizzle well with olive oil. Carefully gather the sides of the greaseproof paper and fold tightly to create closed parcels.
4. Place the parcels on a large baking sheet and cook in the oven for 15 minutes. Serve immediately on flat plates and let everyone work out what to do.
Risotto with meat sauce
Serves 4
I am used to delicate risotto dishes with vegetables or fish, a tradition I learnt when living in Venice. So this recipe, a version of which I tried at Cibrèo, near Piazza dei Ciompi in Florence, was a very nice surprise. It is rich and unctuous, perfect in winter months.
Ingredients
1 litre beef stock
Extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
Flaky sea salt
1 small carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
125g minced veal or pork, or a combination of both
1 chicken liver, cleaned and chopped
2 tbsp tomato puree
100ml red wine
300g carnaroli rice
A large knob of butter
100g grated parmesan
Black pepper
Method
1. Bring the stock to the boil in a large pan, then reduce to a low simmer. Heat a good glug of olive oil in another large saucepan and add half the chopped onion with a pinch of salt, the carrot and celery. Gently sauté over a medium heat for 15 minutes, until soft and glossy. Add the minced meat and chopped chicken liver.
2. Stir until the meat is brown, add the puree and a cup of the stock and stir. Reduce a little, then add the red wine and simmer for about 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a third large saucepan, heat a glug of olive oil and sweat the remaining onion. When it is translucent and soft, about 10 minutes, add the rice and stir, coating every grain. Introduce the stock, a little ladleful at a time, over the following 15 minutes, never allowing the rice to dry out but never flooding it either.
4. Add the meat sauce to the pan of risotto and continue to cook and stir for another 5 minutes or so, adding more stock a little at a time as above. Test a grain of rice between your front teeth: it should yield easily but still have a little bite. When it tastes ready, add more salt if necessary, stir in the butter enthusiastically until it has melted completely, then take off the heat and gently fold in about two thirds of the grated parmesan.
5. Serve hot with black pepper and the remaining parmesan scattered over the top if you like.
Extracted from Brutto by Russell Norman (Ebury Press, £32), published on Thursday. Buy from timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Special discount for Times+ members
