Steak Florentine

When Americans think of Italian cuisine, this is what usually comes to mind.


But for many Italians, especially Tuscans, meat  defines their diet...every bit as much as pasta.

The king of meat dishes is steak Florentine...

...huge slabs of beef that make one wonder how can one person, or even six, eat all that?

Steak Florentine comes from special cows...Chianina.  


These cows got their name because they we originally raised in the Val di Chiana, which sits on the other side of our neighboring town of Montepulciano.

At dinner one night, inside the packed restaurant Osteria Acquacheta, we got to see how they make steak Florentine.


Full disclosure:  This restaurant lives off the tourist trade.  The owner, whom we later learned grew up in Pienza, is a character.  At the end of the meal, he comes and tallies your bill on the placemat you ate off. 

This night, about half the people you see in this photo ordered the specialty of the house.

(We got these photos because the restaurant was so packed, they seated five of us at a table for two in the very back.  Three of us ate our dinners sitting on the steps up to the kitchen)

The cooks start with huge chunks of beef.  


During the course of our dinner, we saw them bring three of these mountains of meat from the basement locker up to the kitchen.

As the customer places his order, they cut the meat into two-inch-thick slabs...

...and then bring it to the table for the customer's approval.


Hard as it may seem to believe, one customer actually sent his slab of beef back because it wasn't thick enough.

Carol and Roger often joked that Tuscan restaurants never really cooked their steaks; they just walked them past the oven.

Italians in this part of the world like their beef extremely rare.

But at Osteria Acquacheta, the meat actually went into the wood-fired grill.

...and came out seared and rushed to the table piping-hot.