Cibrèo

This was where we had one of the best meals ever, anywhere. The food was beautiful and delicious. The service was attentive and warm. The wine was… I can’t find words. Especially for the dessert wine (nope, not vin santo). I will make a trip there every time I’m in Firenze.

Worst dining experience of our trip to Florence. We were seated in a ding room obviously for tourists. Service was non existent and after sitting for ²¹⁄₂ hours and still waiting for entre we walked out.

Good lord it doesn’t get much better than this!

This was our favorite dining experience in Florence. If you are a foodie, make this one of the stops on your lists! The food was just of incredibly high quality and so interesting, the service was impeccable and for us it was a very authentic experience. Definitely recommend getting a reservation if you can as the restaurant was pretty packed starting at 8pm.
We knew about how the menu worked so when the manager came and sat at our table and explained, at length, our various course options we listened carefully and were pleasantly surprised when she was more than willing to answer all of our questions. She also gave us recommendations on which appetizers and main courses went together and offered to give T two half portions of two entrees he was having trouble choosing between. Amazing service.
We had the creamy polenta with parmesan and the parmesan bread pudding with a rabbit ragu for appetizers — both were delicious, so light yet rich and full of flavor. Also, very generously sized for appetizers! For our entrees I ate the roasted squab stuffed with candied fruits which reminded of something out of Game of Thrones — you eat the squab with your fingers as the meat is super juicy and the candied cherries and other fruits (and ginger) add a sweet and slightly spicy flavor to the dish. T had stuffed rabbit and a veal stew, both of which were delicious.
We were stuffed after dinner but the desserts were so tempting we ordered two and they brought out a complementary third for us to share. I chose the coffee custard covered in a decadent chocolate sauce, which was perfectly not-​too-​sweet, and T chose a walnut, honey and dried fruit tart which was amazing. It didn’t sound super interesting when he ordered it but the tart crust was flaky, the honey was floral and lush and the dish came together perfectly.
Capped our evening off with a cappuccino and then slowly walked home. Definitely, definitely would come back the next time we are in Florence!

For my money, this is still the best restaurant in Florence, the one to beat all comers. Eschewing pasta or really anything familiar from a typical Italian restaurant, Cibreo challenges diners with earthy fare and complex flavors derived from Tuscany and only Tuscany, stressing freshness and thoughtful preparation, and rewards them with an abundance of delicious food that just keeps coming. I love the negotiation with the manager over the right choices from their unwritten daily menu. It’s not an inexpensive meal, nor a fast one, but no visit to Florence is complete without dining at here.

worst restaurant and even worse service. Very rude and dismissive manager. this turned out to be the nastiest food and most expensive of all the meals we had in Italy. When we asked why there was so much oil on the tuna tartar — his response was: «This is Tuscany.» Do not eat here!

On Friday 10/​10/​2014, my husband and I had dinner at Cibreo. The reviews on Unilocal were so great, but the overall experience, and the food, fell incredibly short.
The «human menu» is awkward. One of the staff seats themselves at your table, and reads a list of menu items available for you to order.
The restaurant is old, outdated, and there were flies on the wall, buzzing around our wine glasses, and on the tablecloth of the empty table next to us.
After you order your food from the «human menu,» they bring an assortment of foods– «a present from the chef». Would have been a nice touch, if the food had been delicious. They bring out tripe (my husband tried it, and did not like it… full disclosure, I did not try it), a garlicky ricotta terrine-​like spread (good flavor, bad texture), chicken liver crostini (bite size), mushrooms (rubbery), and another terrine-​like spread that tasted like a caprese salad in the form of a shmear. All in all, the textures paired poorly together. The flies continued to buzz around us.
Delicious: we shared the polenta with white truffle. It was great. See pic. However, they do charge double for the white truffles. This is typical at most restaurants during truffle season. I had the minestrone soup with white tuna. It was pretty good.
With dinner, they bring you a bread bone– see pic. I don’t get this.
I ordered the chicken and ricotta meatballs (2 good-​sized balls), which were delicious. Sadly, they came with whipped potatoes, that had a pudding-​like skin on top. I think they may have been microwaved before being served to me. My husband had the rabbit, which had many bits and pieces of cartilage, making it inedible. The rabbit came with soggy, room-​temperature green beans.
We skipped dessert, and decided to get gelato down the street. The owner asked how our meal was, and we told him not so great. He shrugged, and walked away. He did not care to learn what we were disappointed in. They brought us a cheesecake with an orange-​gelee on top. It was not good. I advised our hotel concierge (Helvetia Bristol) of our experience.

Definitely not worth the money. The service was good and it was unusual and interesting to have a verbal rather than a written menu. However while the food was good, it was not amazing. The spinach soup to start was good if a little salty. Then € 40 for a small main of aubergine parmigiana which again was good but not remarkable. Honestly nothing special and a meal we won’t remember.

After travelling around the world on business, I happen to try this restaurant thanks to a recommendation and I fell in love with this culinary reveleation. This experience is one of my top 2 dinners in my life (the other being my wedding night and that was highly influenced by the event of course!).
This restaurant is further east from the Florence core and the 4 corners of the street all belong to the same group. A café, casual restaurant, a teatro, and this culinary wonderland. From the outside, it looks like a casual restaurant but once you’re in, the most wonderful hostess, Christina, weaves the most lovely experience in front of you.
The menu is non-​existent because they search and create their daily menu from the freshest ingredients they can find. Christina sits at your table and uses the most descriptive words to create a visual of the most alluring dishes you can imagine. She helps craft a tale from primi to secondi and finally dolce by pairing the flavours from each moment to the next. Ensuring that duplicative ingredients are not done and that they compliment each other.
We start with a creamy amuse bouche of tumeric yogurt with local artisan olive oil. It’s light, savoury, and bursting with flavours. I want to smear this on everything.
Then our primi arrives and my spicy seafood stew has the clean taste of freshly caught fish with the right touch of heat. The complimentary crostini with the smooth pureed Tuscan style liver just delights the tongue. The ricotta is so light and the taste can only be explained as pure and clean milk that reminds me of fresh raw milk. A spear composed of pureed Tuscan beans is a creamy comfort.
My main dish is composed of in season artichoke, egg yolk just lightly poached, and one of the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had that isn’t ladened with heavy use of butter or cream. A base of creamy mash potato creates a nest for artichoke. It’s stands on it’s ‘head’ and creates a cover for the golden yolk. The artichoke is perfectly cooked and Christina gently takes a butter knife and slices it in half down the middle to reveal the yolk within. The presentation is wonderful and the taste… outstanding. My table mate was given caramlized local onions that were almost jam like because of the inherent sweetness and cooking technique. It was just amazing.
The dessert blew me away… I ordered a chestnut mousse cake that had crispy melt in your mouth meringue embedded within it. I’ve never had anything like it before and I probably will never find it again. Everyone at the table agreed it was a definite highlight of our entire Florence trip. The flourless chocolate cake was the most addictive chocolate dessert I’ve had in a long time and definitely a wonderous taste for any chocolate lover.
I speak a lot about the food and it’s clear the quality and technique to create this culinary dream is amazing but Christina (the hostess) made it special. Her attention to detail was phenomenal. I didn’t say I was vegetarian but she took a quick mental note when my tablemate said ‘oh that’s right you don’t eat meat’ in a general table talk. When my complimentary sides for my primi arrived, I received two portions of the vegetarian option instead of the meat and vegetarian. Her gracious smiles and kind conversation is rarely seen in any type of service and it’s clear that she truly enjoys creating these experiences for food lovers.
If you’re ever in Florence and you want to experience a once in a lifetime and unique dining experience, this is it. Forget the overly precious and cold service of Michelin starred restaurants, and come here for the most sublime and warm service with the best Tuscan food.

Back this eve after three years… as good as ever, especially with the help of Alphonso and Christina
This is what I wrote three years ago on Tripadvisor [all still true]:
— — — — — — –
«Worth every euro… perfection»
5 of 5 stars Reviewed November 3, 2010
What a heavenly experience. All was perfect: food, service, attention to detail, desire to please, et. al. The crostini were so good on the mixed appetizer plate that I asked for more: no problem, no charge. I asked the owner for some fresh fruit for desert instead of dolci. He searched and found some perfect raspberries, which were not on the menu. The wine recommendation from the sommelier was right on: not too expensive and correct with the food we had ordered. We thought of extending our Florence stay so we could eat in Cibreo again.
Be aware that there are actually four Cibreos: the one I’m reviewing, a trattoria adjacent which is less expensive, a café, and a dinner theater. They may all be worth checking out.
5 of 5 stars Value
4 of 5 stars Atmosphere
5 of 5 stars Service
5 of 5 stars Food

Cibreo is the most misunderstood restaurant in Florence.
A foodie paradise, Cibreo doesn’t even crack the top 400 of more than 1,000 Florence restaurants ranked by the esteemed members of one of the world’s most popular on-​line rating sites.
Perhaps the fine dining establishment of star chef Fabio Picchi isn’t for everyone — the Olive Garden, it ain’t.
But for anyone who appreciates slow food, outstanding service, premium ingredients and local sourcing, Cibreo easily deserves to be ranked among top dozen dining spots in fabled Florence.
It seems like the philistines who rail against Cibreo have a quartet of common complaints:
Long waits for food (do you want fast service from a microwave or proper service from a kitchen that cares?)
Small portions (they aren’t small — they are just appropriate size. Notice how Europeans aren’t as obese as Americans? There’s a reason — normal-​sized portions.)
They don’t serve pasta (Tuscan cuisine involves a wide area of cheeses, game meat, beans, farm to table vegetables and other items that are not based on the noodle and slathered in red sauce.
High prices (Florence is an expensive city and for the record, you could easily spend more than half of what it costs to eat at Cibreo drinking horrible wine, eating crappy food and being upsold on lousy appetizers and desserts at any number of tourist traps with pretty piazza views but cruddy kitchens. In other words, you get what you pay for.)
Cibreo has no printed menu. Waiters — versed in several languages — sit down with you and go over the fresh items the purveyors have delivered that day and how they might make an excellent primi and secondi for your palette.
Though Cibreo is for foodies — not the Cracker Barrel crowd — our server was very conscious of not allowing us to embarrass ourselves with an order we would be unhappy with.
She very subtly pointed out that a game meat would be served cold to room temperature (when an American might expect it warm and be disappointed if it didn’t come out red hot.) She also subtly stressed that the roast pigeon does have lots of small bones and is to be eaten with fingers.
The attention to detail is staggering — and not just with the memorized menu with dozens of dazzling preparations.
Our server noticed a wobbly-​legged chair at the table next to ours. She shot a glance at an underling (apparently responsible for such things) that basically said «the next time you let this happen, that faulty piece of furniture will be smashed over your head.»
Again — if you want endless soup, salad and bread sticks, this ain’t your place.
If you love starting off your meal with a perfectly-​crafted array of Tuscan tidbits — created by Chef Picchi, he of the mad man genius in the kitchen self-​cultivated persona — you have come to the right place.
Out comes Giulio Picchi, Fabio’s son, to tell you about the heavenly items spread out in tiny tasting portions for you.
Our grazing included: white beans in fabulous olive oil, ricotta unlike any you’ve ever savored, smoked cold muscles good enough to seduce a non bi-​valve eater, the best zucchini you’ve ever tasted, warm potato rolls, chicken liver pâté spread on crostini, herbed goat cheese, tomato aspic (cold gelatin) and cold veal tripe salad.
Full disclosure time. We really tried hard not to be stomach-​squeamish, but could not rise above our Midwestern roots. Alas, we did not finish even the tiny taste o’ trippa.
Trusting the sommelier, we went with a fine Super Tuscan Sangiovese-​Cabernet Sauvignon blend that, well, blended perfectly with the wide range of delicacies brought to our table. Light on the tongue, it must of packed a bit of a punch, for we confess we forgot to note the label (sorry).
Spouse Heidi’s primi patti was polenta with light ricotta cheese — light as a cloud. I opened with a brown fish stew that tasted like an upscale New Orleans gumbo.
Somewhere along the way, Team Picchi shows a little levity by bringing each table a giant bread stick shaped like a bone. Despite being a fine dining joint, at least half the diners, (aka all the American tourists in the house) couldn’t resist mugging for camera phone shots with the bone gritted in their teeth, Fido the hound style.
For the record, the breadstick tastes great and no, we did not mug for any cameras.
Now onto the fab the secondi patti. Heidi’s was an ethereal deconstructed veal stew served on a plate, not a bowl, with edges defined by small homemade bread sticks. The super tender veal was enhanced with carrot coins and pureed roasted potatoes.
Yours truly adopted for Cibreo’s somewhat famous chicken and ricotta meat balls in tomato sauce with a side of asparagus.

This is one of my favorite restaurants in Florence, a real true foodie paradise. They do not have the usual menu items that one expects from an Italian restaurant. In fact, they do not even have a menu! The options change daily, and the AMAZING servers memorize the entire menu (and it is HUGE), describing everything down to the last herb. I don’t know how they do it! Their wines are to die for, and the service is impeccable. The place is always packed, and the wait can be long, even if you have reservations. If you like tripe (and I didn’t before I had it at this place), sweetbreads, and food prepared with the utmost flavor and care, veni quoi! It is very spendy, but worth every Euro.