Mercato Centrale: Lampredotto & Tripe

Why is it significant?

Here it is: a vast hall of cast iron and glass on a stone base, with great arched windows and a roof that lets in the daylight. Step inside, and the noise hits you first, then the smell of cheese, cured ham, coffee and something simmering.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Here it is: a vast hall of cast iron and glass on a stone base, with great arched windows and a roof that lets in the daylight. Step inside, and the noise hits you first, then the smell of cheese, cured ham, coffee and something simmering.

This is the Mercato Centrale, designed by Giuseppe Mengoni, the same engineer as the Sant'Ambrogio market where you started, and opened in 1874. It was built to replace the old market that was being demolished at the heart of the city, and it was the height of modernity, iron and glass in the style of the great halls of Paris. The ground floor is still a working market of butchers, cheesemongers and greengrocers. The upper floor was reborn as a food hall in 2014.

And now the dish that separates the visitors from the Florentines: lampredotto. It is the fourth stomach of the cow, named, people say, because its dark folds resemble the lamprey, an eel-like fish. It is simmered for hours in a broth with tomato, onion, celery and parsley, then sliced on a wooden board, stuffed into a round roll whose top has been dipped in the broth, and finished with green parsley sauce and a few drops of chilli oil.

For centuries the trippai, the tripe sellers, have fed this city from stalls and carts. This was the lunch of porters, market workers and builders, cheap, hot and nourishing, made from the parts of the animal the rich would not touch. Its cousin is trippa alla fiorentina, tripe stewed with tomato and served with grated cheese. Try one standing up, with a glass of red, and you have eaten like a real Florentine.

Think back over the walk: walled nuns living on bread, Vasari's fish loggia, the saltless loaf, a cream frozen for the Medici, coffee at the bar, truffle rolls, wine passed through a hole in the wall, and a steak named by the English. Florence is usually told through its paintings, but its kitchens tell the same story... with more garlic. Buon appetito.