Il Cavallino

Just awful all around. Bad service with a 15% service charge. Avoid this tourist trap at all costs.

Being right at the center of the Piazza della Signoria, I’m sure this was a tourist trap.
Since I was a tourist and I was hungry, and it was late, I fell into the trap.
I’ve been wanting to try bistecca Fiorentina (since my Fodor’s book told me I HAD to try this in Florence), I just went with it. Their pricing is 4.50 Euros/​gram and I think you had to order a minimum of 5 grams — so the dish came out to roughly 22 Euros. When it came out, it looked SO good. I couldn’t wait to try it! But as soon as my knife pierced (or TRIED to pierce) the steak, I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Only about half the steak was edible. The rest was all veins. I couldn’t even cut it apart. Aside from that, it was extremely bland, to rub salt into the wound (ha ha.)
The view of the piazza was great though — I’ll have to give them that.

Food was mediocre. Bruschetta was dry and the bread was stale. Tuscan tortellini had a strong bit to it. It was really undercooked. Greek salad was OK. Overall not a good restaurant. Took 25 minutes to bring a salad. Stay away.

I don’t usually just tear a place apart, but this clip joint in the piazza republica deserves it. It’s so bad I’m not going to bother w all the details. Absolutely a tourist trap with food worse than something in a middle America strip mall. Stopped in on New Year’s Day since most others were closed for lunch. Should have known something was up when the bread was stale and the service was comically bad. We ordered tagliatelle w mushroom and they brought out what looked like a noodle from a Chinese restaurant. And when I questioned them on it they couldn’t even argue. I had the papparadele which was not bad. Thankfully my girlfriend has been to Florence many times and the rest of our dining experiences are properly managed. Just stay away from this place. Trust me. Total rip.