I have a soft spot for Santo Spirito; both the piazza and the osteria which takes its name. It's a gentle relief from the crowds around the Uffizi and the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. Six years after we were first here, we found ourself standing in the square again on this warm autumn day, breathing a sigh of relief that almost nothing had changed. Except that this time, this Sunday, the square and the streets around were filled with the stalls of a flea market: tressle tables of bric-a-brac, arrangements of old furniture, pictures (some good, some tacky), rails of second-hand clothes, boxes of records, glass cases of old jewellery, stacks of crockery, tablefuls of books...
It was lunchtime. In one corner of the piazza a drift of smoke rose enticingly from a mobile kitchen serving porchetta and fried polenta to a growing queue of market browsers (and, I think, traders too). In the other, only one table was left on the osteria's little terrace on the square. We couldn't resist, and were taking our seats almost before we knew it. Some little things were different: the tablecloths, the cutlery tied with dark blue ribbons, the bread now served in a colander. But the essence of the place remained the same as we remembered: young, rafish and lively. And though we ourselves felt distinctly less young, rafish and lively than we did even just six years ago, we were happy to join in.
We didn't overdo it. We ate pizza with salamino piccante and salad with celery, walnuts and gorgonzola dolce, dressed at the table with apple balsamic. And drank a glass of Orvieto each. And we knew (and breathed the second sigh of relief that day) that the osteria hadn't lost its touch.
Osteria Santo Spirito, Piazza di Santo Spirito, 16, 50125 Firenze
Tel 055 2382383
Still no website. Still doesn't matter. Still fantastic.
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