Bistecca alla Fiorentina

Bistecca alla fiorentina is a thick-cut, bone-in T-bone or porterhouse steak — typically 3 to 5 centimeters thick and weighing well over a kilogram — cut from Chianina cattle, an ancient white Tuscan breed prized for lean, tender beef. The steak is grilled hard and fast over glowing chestnut or oak coals, seared dark on the outside while staying deep red and barely warm at the bone, traditionally served "al sangue" (rare) with no sauce beyond a final drizzle of Tuscan olive oil, coarse salt, and cracked pepper.

Because of its size, a single bistecca is usually shared between two or more diners and sold by weight, priced per etto (100 grams) on Florentine menus. Ordering it "ben cotto" (well-done) is considered close to sacrilege in traditional Florentine trattorias, where the char-and-rare contrast is the entire point of the dish.

The Chianina breed at the heart of the dish is one of the oldest cattle breeds in the world, raised in Tuscany's Val di Chiana since Etruscan and Roman times, when its size made it prized as a draft and even sacrificial animal long before it became known for its meat. Florence's tradition of grilling large cuts over open coals took its modern form during the Renaissance, when the city's outdoor festivals and civic feasts regularly featured beef roasted for the public.

A popular local legend — repeated in Florence more as folklore than documented fact — traces the dish's name to English visitors: during the Feast of San Lorenzo in the 16th century, when the city distributed free grilled beef to residents and pilgrims, English merchants supposedly called for "beef steak," and Florentines adapted the phrase into "bistecca." Historians treat the story skeptically, since similar grilled-beef traditions and terminology existed independently across Italy, but the tale remains part of the dish's local mythology.

Every August, the town of Cortona in the Val di Chiana hosts the Sagra della Bistecca, a multi-day festival built entirely around grilling Chianina beef over open coals for the whole community — a modern echo of the dish's civic, festival-food roots. Travelers pairing a Florence trip with other Italian classics can also read about risotto alla Milanese, another regionally defined Italian dish tied to a single city's identity.