Buca Lapi has been serving Florence since 1880. There is a reason why people have been walking downstairs to the dining room and filling tables for over 140 years. The food is simply fantastic. As you dine, it is impossible not to stare at the open kitchen where the staff pumps out food all night. Anyways, let’s get to it… Our waitress did not mess around, and pointedly let us know what to get and what not to get on the menu.
As a French onion soup aficionado, of course I had to order the Italian french onion soup. It was delicious. Although it didn’t have the cheese melting over the side of the bowl (which is usually my favorite part), it was full of flavor. You could share this with a friend, but if you do not have a big appetite, skip this and go right to the pastas and mains.
For the primi piatti, we did a double combo of the spinach and ricotta cheese tortelli with olive oil and sage, and also ordered the freshly made ribbon pasta with wild boar sauce. Both pastas were deliciously homemade, making for a soft delicious texture. I loved the wild boar pasta as it is a Florentine staple, and it was consistently one of my favorite dishes in Florence. However, both pastas were incredible.
For the main dish I had the wild boar with polenta. As a new fan of wild boar, this dish immediately caught my eye. Also, I had never tried this polenta before and kept hearing about it, so I pulled the trigger on the dish. I thought it was good, but it was nothing memorable. There are many other dishes to try that I would go for next time.
Finally, we finished off with dessert. We got strawberries and whipped cream. I’ll tell you what, if I remember one thing about this place, this dessert was it. There was something special going on in that whipped cream. About a minute or 2 after our waitress placed it on our table, it was gone.
Takeaways: Really good pastas, and incredible dessert selection. A bit pricey, but definitely worth the trip.
Score: 8.5/10
a dude eats abroad 