Bown's Best
Independent reviews of the world's best restaurants, hotels and travel by the acclaimed critic Francis Bown and his team.
Independent reviews of the world's best restaurants, hotels and travel by the acclaimed critic Francis Bown and his team.
The Place Firenze in Florence is not just the city’s most stylish and luxurious boutique hotel. It is also an establishment with a moral dimension. Its owners, the Babini family, and its charming General Manager, Claudio Meli (pictured with your correspondent), have created The Place of Wonders Foundation which provides scholarships and support for aspiring craftsmen keen to maintain Italy’s ancient skills. The results of those skills are evident throughout the reception rooms and 20 bedrooms of this “home from home”. The décor, furnishings, art work, cutlery and crockery are all of the highest quality. The interior designer, Florence-based Luigi Fragola, is to be congratulated in creating an environment which is supremely elegant and yet relaxed and welcoming.
Going to Florence, you will want to do two things: go to a restaurant where all your fellow diners are obviously having a wonderful time, and eat the city’s most famous dish. And you might well want to add a third: dinner in Florence’s oldest restaurant. All three can be accomplished in one splendid dining room - the Buca Lapi - over which reigns the most genial of hosts, Luciano Ghinassi (pictured).
Fabio Picchi is a very talented and experienced chef. He opened his famous dining room in Florence - still in a street between the piazza Ghiberti and the via dei Macci - in 1979. Now he has created another impressive restaurant right in the centre of the city, a few steps from the piazza della Repubblica - the Cibrèo Ristorante & Cocktail Bar. (Cibrèo, incidentally, is a ragout, which used to be made for the family by the Chef’s mother.)
