Palmabella's Passions

We had long , easy flights with lots of sleep on the planes. We arrived in Firenze on Friday afternoon, after driving from Rome. Our Hotel Burchianti is charming and our room has a lovely frescoed ceiling full of fat cherubs eating grapes.

Our first evening, we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Il Cibreo. We began with a glass of Prosecco and they brought complementary appetizers of a savory ricotta pudding and crostini with pate. Then bread, caponata, roasted peppers, a tomato aspic and zucchini arrived. The waiter pulls a chair up to your table and proceeds to explain choices for the first two courses. For our primi piatti, Brad had a lovely polenta with butter and shaved parmesano, and I had potato-ricotta flan with fresh basil pesto on the side. My challenge will be for Diva to get me that recipe. OMG! It was to die for, so light and delicious! The pesto was so light, it was almost like a basil mousse!

For our entrees, I had vitello tonato with a glass of Trebbio and Brad had squab with a Chianti Classico. We passed on dolci, but were brought a piece of complementary flourless chocolate cake.

We walked to Vivoli for gelato....yes it was fabulous. Brad tried cafe-ciocolato and stracchiatella, while I had crema and amaretto. YUM! One more cappucino and we were asleep by 1:00. A Perfect first night's dinner!