The Slow Sunday: Market and Long Lunch in Florence

Across from the Sant'Ambrogio market, this is the café side of the Cibrèo family, the perfect spot to start a market Sunday with a coffee and a pastry before the stalls. The room has the warmth and slightly theatrical charm of the whole Cibrèo operation. It works as a morning base and an afternoon return for a glass. Sit outside if the weather allows and watch the quarter wake up.

A market stall turned tiny lunch counter inside the Sant'Ambrogio covered market itself, where you eat a cheap, genuine plate of pasta or boiled meat at communal tables. It is loud, fast and entirely local, the very definition of a market lunch. There is no menu romance, just good honest cooking at market prices. Go at noon, share a table, pay cash.

A hole-in-the-wall panino counter by the Sant'Ambrogio market with a short, daily-changing list of inventive fillings — boar, tongue, anchovy, whatever is good that day. There is nowhere to sit; you eat it on the street, the way the market intends. The quality far outstrips the format. Grab one as you shop and call it the first lunch of the day.

A long-running Neapolitan pizzeria in the Sant'Ambrogio quarter, the antidote to a morning of Tuscan austerity. The pizzas are properly Neapolitan and the room is busy and convivial, full of locals rather than tourists. It is a relaxed, no-fuss anchor for a market-day lunch. Book ahead on weekends or expect a wait at the door.

The trattoria sibling of the grander Cibrèo restaurant, known to everyone as the Cibrèino, serving the same celebrated kitchen's cooking in a snug, no-reservations room. The flavours are bold and unmistakably Florentine, the format relaxed and the value better than its famous neighbour. It is made for a long, generous lunch among the market crowd. Come early — the small room fills fast and there is no booking.

A neighbourhood trattoria out at Le Cure, away from the centre, where families settle in for a proper Sunday lunch of grilled meats and Tuscan classics. The room is unfussy and the welcome warm, the pace exactly as slow as the day deserves. It is the kind of place that fills with three generations at the same table. Reserve and plan to stay for the afternoon.

On the way to Le Cure, Da Burde is a grocery-and-trattoria institution where the Sunday and Friday tables are an event — ribollita, baccalà and a serious wine cellar to match. It is worth the trip out of the centre precisely because it keeps the unhurried, family rhythm the centre has lost. The cooking is unwaveringly traditional. Book the long lunch and let the afternoon go.

A relaxed Sant'Ambrogio trattoria with a leafy terrace, good for an unhurried weekend lunch of seasonal Tuscan plates after the market. The cooking is honest and the setting calm, a step back from the busier rooms nearby. It suits a long table that doesn't want to rush. Sit outside and let lunch drift into the afternoon.

A Santa Croce institution making gelato since 1930, widely held to be among the best in the city and worth the inevitable queue. The flavours are classic and intense, served in cups rather than cones in the old style. It is touristy now, but the quality has held, which is why Florentines still send visitors here. Take a cup to the nearby piazza and eat it in the sun.

A tiny gelateria on the pretty Piazza della Passera in the Oltrarno, making small-batch gelato with bright, natural flavours and a loyal local following. It is everything Vivoli is not — quiet, neighbourhood, off the trail. The seasonal fruit flavours are the ones to chase. Grab a cone and sit on the piazza as the afternoon cools.

A long-established San Niccolò wine bar with one of the city's deepest lists and a terrace just outside the old gate, perfect for closing a Sunday with a glass and a board of cheese. The wine knowledge is serious and the atmosphere relaxed. It is where locals end the weekend rather than where visitors begin it. Settle in at golden hour and let them pour you something Tuscan.