If you’re visiting Florence in autumn, especially on Halloween night, we suggest booking your restaurant well in advance. Tables across the city fill up quickly, and finding a spot at your favourite place won’t be easy. That’s why we’ve put together a themed menu to prepare in your apartment at Palazzo Della Nave. It’s a lovely alternative for spending an evening together and trying your hand at some authentic Italian dishes.
Cooking at home is often overlooked by visitors spending a few days in Florence, but we can assure you that sometimes it can be even better than an evening at a restaurant. The key is choosing the right, high-quality ingredients and knowing where to buy them.
Let’s start there: the first step towards a proper dinner is grocery shopping, a cathartic experience for Florentines, who are famous for loving good food so much that they even talk about it while eating. Palazzo Della Nave is ideally located just a few minutes’ walk from Sant’Ambrogio Market, which takes place every morning except Sunday. Here you’ll find all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, cheese and other tempting treats. Let the stalls and their vendors draw you in: here’s your shopping list for a three-course dinner for two.
Fruit, vegetables and herbs:
- 500 g pumpkin
- 4 large button mushrooms
- ½ head of radicchio
- 1 pear
- ½ onion
- 1 small garlic clove
- Fresh rosemary, sage and parsley
Bread, rice and pantry essentials:
- 4 slices of bread for the crostini
- 160 g risotto rice
- 100 g cooked, peeled chestnuts
- 25 g shelled walnuts
- 25 g breadcrumbs
- Approximately 600 ml vegetable stock
- Extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper, as needed
Cheese and dairy:
- 75 g goat’s cheese
- 30 g Parmesan
- 20 g butter
Once you’re back at Palazzo, open a bottle of good red wine, preferably Chianti Classico, and you’ll be ready to start cooking.
To start: pumpkin, goat’s cheese and walnut crostini
Roast the pumpkin with olive oil, rosemary and a pinch of salt, then mash it with a fork. Spread it over slices of toasted bread, add the goat’s cheese and finish with chopped walnuts and black pepper. Serve the crostini while still warm on a plate in the centre of the table: the start of dinner can be informal. Aperitivo is often enjoyed while preparing the other courses — a very Italian ritual.
The first course: pumpkin and sage risotto
Gently sauté the onion in a saucepan, add the pumpkin cut into small cubes and let it soften. Add the rice, toast it briefly, then continue cooking, adding the hot vegetable stock a little at a time. Once the rice is cooked, stir in the butter and Parmesan until creamy. Remember: always do this with the heat off! If you like, a few sage leaves crisped in a frying pan add fragrance to his majesty the risotto: easy, quick and truly delicious, especially on one of those rainy autumn evenings.
The second course: mushrooms stuffed with chestnuts and herbs
Next, a vegetarian dish inspired by woodland flavours. Fill the large button mushrooms with a mixture of chopped, sautéed mushroom stems, crumbled cooked chestnuts, breadcrumbs, parsley and a little garlic. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden on top. Serve with a salad of radicchio and sliced pear.
Once you’ve finished your dinner (and the bottle of wine), we suggest heading out for dessert. It is Halloween night, after all, and the streets of central Florence fill with people in costume ready to go trick-or-treating. Add a spooky touch to your outfit and go in search of dessert, one sweet treat at a time.
In the apartments with kitchens at Palazzo Della Nave, returning after a day in the city is also an opportunity to choose your ingredients, open a bottle and take your time — at Halloween and throughout the year!
