Cantinetta Cavour

Since we were pretty exhausted on our last night in Florence (and also we had to wake up early the next morning to head to Pisa), we decided to hit up Cantinetta Cavour right across the street from our apartment.  Hey, it wasn't giving up on good food either as the place has positive reviews.  However, reviews aren't the end all, so we needed to assess this with our own lens.  We enjoyed our Bistecca Florentine so much the first night, we decided to have it again at this meal!

But before, that we started with the Crostini Toscani with chicken liver pâté.  Unlike the one we had a few meals before, this one was a bit smoother, yet still had plenty of texture such as the Tuscan-style of this dish.  I much preferred this one as the pâté was more balanced in flavour and aromatic.  The crostini was crunchy, yet not hard while holding up to the wet ingredient on top.  Also liked how they weren't shy with slathering that pâté on top. 

For our mains, we wanted to get something to compliment the beef, so we chose the Filetto di Orata alla Mediterranea (Sea Bream).  We enjoyed this dish as the fish itself was flaky and moist while beautifully prepared.  It was seasoned properly and had a nutty flavour from the sear. However, the sauce on top really put it over the top with so much flavour including the tang from the olives and sweetness from the veggies.

Onto what we were really here for - the Bistecca alla Florentine!  This was 1.2kg as it should be at minimum to qualify as such steak.  For some reason, it seemed like more meat than the meal we had the first night.  I also thought the steak was even better in terms of texture.  Although it was rare (as it should be), the meat was buttery and soft with lots of meaty flavour.  It was salted enough and I enjoyed how it was thicker than the first steak we had. 

Even thought their Beef Tartare with mustard, dried tomatoes and stracciatella was a pretty hefty main dish size, we decided to do that as an appetizer.  This was pretty good with a nice mix of flavours including the tang from the mustard, sharpness from the red onions and additional sweet zip from the tomatoes.  Add in the stringy cheesiness from the stracciatella, this was delicious and went well with our bread.  The beef itself was tender and didn't require much effort to chew.

Moving onto the pasta course, we had the Spaghetti alla Chitarra with pomodoro and burrata.  Sporting a bright and mild tomato sauce, this didn't eat very heavy despite the burrata on top.  The natural sweetness of the tomatoes came through as well as a nice dose of background acidity.  Of course the burrata was a nice addition to provided depth to the pasta.  About that pasta, it was firmly al dente, just how we like it.  If we had to compare with our meal at Ristorante Romantico il Paiolo, the one here was far superior and I felt our steak was really 1.2kg or maybe even bigger.

The Good:

- Solid eats

- Beautiful Florentine steak

- Super nice people

The Bad:

- Gets a bit busy and they are trying their best to attend to every table, but you have to be patient