Hello Friends of Florence and Focaccia….
As the home and heart of the Renaissance, the innumerable number of artistic treasures that Florence has given the world are truly remarkable and the city has a way of making even the simplest things feel like ceremony. Nowhere is that truer than in the quiet holy act of eating a sandwich. For some time now she has been famous for being the birthplace of crispy golden Focaccia, hot out of the oven split open and overstuffed with Italian meats, cheeses and bold, exotic spreads…let’s take a quick visit to this magical place.
When in the city, you find them not by looking, but following the perfume…warm olive oil, freshly cut rosemary, and the faint sweetness of dough that has spent the morning rising like a prayer…(oh yeah and then there’s the block long line on the street).
I adore this city….it hums around you…scooters whining, church bells tossing their bronze voices across the Arno, tourists drifting back and forth like pollen blown in the wind. But the focaccia shops are like little sanctuaries…you step inside and the world softens.
The special ‘Schiacciata’ version of focaccia is a Florentine love letter. The bread is golden, blistered, glazed with EVO and dusted with sea salt. It crackles when the knife enters, sighs with steam when opened, and then…’Oh hell to the yes’…there are the fillings.
The current beauty queen favorite is a version with paper thin Mortadella draped like silk on a bed of Stracciatella, topped with a swallows nest of peppery arugula and finished with a drizzle of lemony pistachio pesto. Sofia, you say you want to add some truffle cream because you’ve heard so much about it but don’t know what it tastes like? “Sure thing Bella…how about the scent of a verdant forest floor after the rain?”
No matter what version you order, every ingredient feels like it was chosen by someone who believes lunch should be a form of devotion. You carry your parchment-wrappedtreasure out into the street, still warm, still breathing. The Schiacciata leaves a mixture of crumbs, sea salt, and olive oil on your fingers. You take a bite and it reveals itself in layers…rustic and elegant all at once…like the city itself where Renaissance palaces stand beside laundry lines and stray cats sun themselves on marble steps. As you walk, eating, you realize that this is the kind of food that doesn’t just fill you…it slows you. It asks you to notice the way the sunlight hits the Duomo’s dome, the way the Arno curls like a ribbon, the way strangers laugh with their whole bodies. A focaccia sandwich in Florence is not a meal…it’s a gentle command…be here…taste this…remember that life can be simple but still magnificent.
And this is why I am introducing these Florentine treasures to San Juan Capistrano. Each month at my Tavern at the Mission, I will be featuring one or more of these lunchtime beauties hoping that, like our’ Tucci Night ‘faithful, you will be able to enjoy a taste of Tuscany and all the foods that I have come to love.
Ciao Bellas…
David & Tino
