C T.
Yelp
This used to be my go-to restaurant in Florence on every trip because the seafood was amazingly fresh. I first heard about it from AMEX Platinum's Departures magazine in 2004 so every trip to Florence, was a trip to Fuor D'Acqua.
When I was booking this restaurant through our hotel concierge, I could tell that they were quite reluctant because they offered more alternate restaurants. But based on our past visits, I decided to go ahead with the booking.
This place used to be a place where I would see the rich of Florence dine - many times, local politicians as well. In our last visits, there were increasing American and British diners and they had expanded into a side room where we were sat mostly.
On our recent visit, the side room was closed. The main room's clientele was now mostly Italian again. We were the only two tables of non-Italians.
On to the food, one of my favorite places for lobster spaghetti is this restaurant, plus the crudo and grill scampi. The draw was that they would get fresh seafood from the coast daily arriving usually as the restaurant was opening at 8pm. On this day, they did not have any lobster so we were super bummed.
When our scampi and white fish crudo came out, my heart sank because the portions were puny and the scampi looked a little sad. Once I started eating them, my heart sank further. These were clearly not fresh as just caught that day. The rest of the meal went downhill as the branzino was overcooked so a little dry.
I guess that sometimes, restaurants go beyond their prime and no matter how much you want it to be the same, it just doesn't. Will not be returning.
