The Mercato Centrale di San Lorenzo is Florence's great pantry: a 19th-century pavilion of iron, cast iron and glass where Florentines have done their shopping for 150 years. All around, among stalls and kiosks, you can smell the city's best-loved street food.
The market was decided in the years when Florence was capital of Italy: renewing the historic centre, which would later wipe out the old medieval market, first required new covered markets. To build it, the old working-class houses near the Basilica di San Lorenzo were torn down and the square around it was opened up. Inaugurated in 1874, it was inspired by the great covered markets of Paris: large windows, a metal frame and a loggia of ten classical arches on each side. On the ground floor the stalls for meat, fish, bread, fruit and vegetables are grouped by trade, like a little town of shops. Around here lampredotto rules: the tripe Florentines eat in a bread roll, strictly standing in front of the tripe seller.
