Working Up a Meat Sweat

Why one meal in Florence is worth the trouble.

Flashback to Florence, Italy in April 2019…a friend and I were on the hunt to experience an obligatory Florentine meal — Bistecca Fiorentina and a glass (or two…or three) of Chianti.

We found ourselves at Trattoria Gobi 13, sat at an outcast counter seat on the corner facing a bookshelf of eclectic antiques including a black and white picture of a young smoldering John Travolta.

We were handed menus — though they weren’t necessary. We played along and pretended to ‘decide’ what to order but we already knew what we really wanted.

A single, aged Bistecca Fiorentina — weighing in at 1kg, 3.5cm thick and spent just seconds on a scorching hot grill.

Black and charred on the outside, bloody red and juicy on the inside.

Alternating bites of steak with sips of robust Chianti, we were working our way up to an evening of horrendous meat sweats.

We absolutely did not care that young Travolta was watching us revel in our carnivorous state.

Besides, neither of us had a hot date any time soon anyway.

After cleaning the steak down to the T-bone, we figured we’d come this far and we ought to finish our completely nutritiously unbalanced meal off with a definitively Tuscan dessert — cantucci and Vin Santo.

Nothing to say except a match made in heaven.

A plate of twice-baked, crunchy biscuits filled with almonds to be dipped in a glass of sweet, smooth, amber Vin Santo (literally translated to Holy Wine, also known as dessert wine).

We shared the dessert. But in retrospect, we probably could have ordered a glass of Vin Santo for our own.

Hearty, rustic, simple, and indulgent — just the way a Tuscan meal should be.

Cantucci will always be one of those foods that conjure feelings of a much simpler, carefree time of my life when my biggest worry was, “What do we want to eat tonight?”