Gusta Osteria

Address: Via de' Michelozzi 13/r, Firenze (FI), Italy.

Review: Firenze can be a tough place to find something good and authentic to eat. Most anything near centro (downtown) or any other tourist destination is touristy, and, almost by definition, sucks. With a recommendation in hand, we walked from centro to Piazza Pitti (near where the Boboli Gardens are located) and hung a right. After a few hundred meters, there was Gusta Osteria.

I wasn't that hungry, so I ended up order just the garganelli al sugo di carne (garganelli with meat sauce).

Garganelli is nothing more than a shape of pasta, but it's a nice one that has a lot of surface area and holds sauce well. It didn't seem to me the garganelli were fresh-made, but that's fine. They were good and well cooked. The meat sauce was interesting in that (1) it utilized large hunks of beef that had been slow-simmered, and (2) there were no discernable vegetables. In this case, interesting was good. The meat was tender and juicy, almost flaky after what was undoubtedly a long time cooking. The overall flavor was deep, tomatoey, and meaty. I did miss the vegetable texture a bit, but this was a fun contrast to so many sauces I've eaten before. In all, good dish.

My wife and friends said they all enjoyed what they ordered as well. I have a feeling we'll be back to Gusta the next time we're in Firenze.

Rating: I only had the one primo, so I can't really give Gusta a x/10 rating. It was good though.