Jay71

A few years back we ate lunch in Il Mercato Centrale in Florence. We just randomly picked a food joint on the first floor and the food was great. Unfortunately we didn't take notes and which place we ate at is a bit vague now.

We're heading back there again next month and were wondering if anyone has any suggestions and/or recommendations eating lunch in Il Mercato Centrale?

TIA.

Fiumicino

Are you sure it was inside the Mercato Centrale and not in the Mercato di San Lorenzo?

Jay71

Hmm, could be. A building with two floors. Restaurants, meat shops, cheese shops, etc on the ground floor. Fruits, spices, etc on the top floor.

Fiumicino

No you are right, only the mercato centrale has two floors. I don't know what restaurant you are talking about since I usually go to the other one. Check the schedule before heading there because I know it is only open once weekly during winter.

Jay71

Finally found it... Nerbone.

Dansa

I found this old thread and another thread talking about the mercato in Rome got my attention to the one in Florence. I know the food/restaurant stalls are open all of the time but what are the days and hours of the actual market downstairs? I have not been able to find this. Thank you.

Perche

I'm not sure what you mean by the market downstairs. The food court is open from from 8AM until midnight. The outdoor market where you buy leather, pottery, and souvenirs was closed last year. It became a mess full of hawkers disrupting the street selling fake Gucci purses and bothering tourists walking by, and because too chaotic, so they had to clean it up. I doubt they have allowed the stalls to reopen. The foods stalls are not open all the time. They close at midnight.

KLouis

As for the Rome one, I was there recently at 8:30. Less than half of the food stalls were open, so nothing is open "all the time".

Perche

I think there is some confusion here. An entrepreneur opened the Mercato Centrale in Florence, and it is a large space with two floors consisting of multiple food stalls, and a restaurant. It is located in the San Lorenzo area. Next to it is an outdoor street market called San Lorenzo Market, not Mercato Centrale. Florence is known for leather, and it had multiple stalls for imitation leather, fake trinkets, souvenirs, and other junk, mostly made in China and India, despite the Made in Italy label. Over the year it morphed into a place that was designed to separate tourists from their money.

In the last few years Florence has become very aggressive at preserving its heritage. It has banned opening new restaurants in the city center unless they are serving Tuscan food. They don't want any more kebab places there. A certain percent of the ingredients served in Florentine restaurants must come from Tuscany, they water down the steps of the major churches so that tourists can't sit on them and have a picnic. Since the San Lorenzo Market was largely a tourist trap selling fake goods, I'm pretty sure that Florence shut it down a few months ago. Mercato Centrale next to San Lorenzo Market, is the authentic food place, and is thriving.

Jay71

Mercato Central is a favourite. We haven't been back to Florence since 2014 but we enjoy walking around San Lorenzo Market. However, we've been pretty suspect of the products sold there, even with the Made in Italy label. However, during one of our earlier trips, we bought a bunch of scarves as gifts that went over well with our friends.
But IMO, it's a good thing if there's some kind of enforcement around the products, particularly anything labeled as made in Italy.