Insider Eats: Florence’s Pensavo Peggio
Fashion photographer and writer Marc Richardson gives the inside track on a Florentine institution that serves up traditional Tuscan cooking and inimitable hospitality to fashion week regulars.
By: Marc RichardsonDate: 2022-10-04
In Italian, the words pensavo peggio translate literally to “I thought worse,” though, depending on who you ask, the meaning is closer to “it could be worse.”
If you ask me, the words mean that I’ve arrived in Florence, because Pensavo Peggio also happens to be the name of one of my favourite places in the world: a quaint, family-owned restaurant nestled on via Del Moro, a relatively quiet Florentine side street. To be fair, crooked and narrow, with scant traffic and diminutive sidewalks, there are a lot of streets in Florence that one might qualify as side streets — even those that, on a map, seem to be major arteries.
Pensavo Peggio came recommended — second-hand, via a Thai apprentice tailor — by the venerable signor Liverano, the legendary Florentine tailor, who, rumour had it, ate there on a daily basis.
If it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me.
Over time, Pensavo Peggio has become a constant during the nomadic periods of my life, weeks spent bouncing between Montreal, London, Florence, Milan and Paris for menswear trade shows and fashion weeks. The first few times that I returned to Florence after that first visit, I made it a point to eat at Pensavo Peggio at least once. But, in recent years, I’ve found myself drawn to it on a nightly basis. For the food, but also for the warmth and the company of Gabriela and Fabrizio, the owners. It has become, in a sense, my Florentine dining room.
Among the Pitti Uomo-going crowd, I’m not alone. It’s been fascinating to see how locals and foreign press and buyers, alike, make repeated visits to Pensavo Peggio. On the soppalco — a popular style of mezzanine in Florence on account of the high, lofted ceilings — one table might feature Japanese buyers, another Florentine tailors entertaining British counterparts, and another a group of photographers from around the world. Then, there are the vacationing tourists, the exchange students and the regular Florentine customers.
“We want everybody to have the same experience,” Fabrizio tells me, “we want the tourists to feel like locals.”
And that, they certainly do.
The first time I walked into Pensavo Peggio, I spoke no Italian, understood even less and couldn’t even pretend to. Now, after impromptu Italian lessons over glasses of house wine, shots of limoncello and the best pici cacio e pepe in the world — I haven’t tried them all, but I assure you that none could possibly rival eating pici cacio e pepe at Pensavo Peggio — I can get by in small spurts. After the impromptu language lessons came offers to step into the kitchen the next evening and learn how to make a perfect cacio e pepe alongside Gabriela.
It’s part of the restaurant’s charm.
So, too, is the lack of cell reception. At first, it’s frustrating and seems inconvenient, but you grow to appreciate the respite. Quick dashes in for a bite turn into hours-long soirées, the outside world blocked out by Pensavo Peggio’s orange walls, which are covered in black and white photos of famous people eating Italian food.
But charm alone doesn’t make a restaurant worth a detour, especially in a city like Florence, where the food is almost always good.
To me, the mark of how good the food is is how incredible the simplest of dishes are at Pensavo Peggio. A bruschetta that is always perfectly seasoned, on traditional Tuscan bread; the aforementioned pici cacio e pepe, which is delectably creamy, yet not overly rich; the pici al’aglione, a simple garlic and tomato sauce; spaghetti alla carrettiera, akin to arrabbiata, but slightly different and cooked perfectly al dente, of course; an insalata italiana with sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella that was so creamy and smooth you’d have sworn it was burrata.
It’s that combination of simple, traditional Tuscan cooking and inimitable hospitality that make Pensavo Peggio what it is to me: a home away from home and a place I’ll always recommend to anybody who sets foot in Florence.
Marc Richardson is a fashion writer and photographer based in Montreal. His work has appeared on Fashionista, Grailed and Garage Magazine.