Restaurants in Pistoia

Pistoia cooks like a town on the plain with a mountain behind it, and two or three of its dishes are not ordered anywhere else.

What you eat here

• Carcerato — a soup of stale bread and beef offal, born around the old town jail, which is where the name comes from. The city's poor dish par excellence, and those who make it have always made it.
• Duck maccheroni — pasta with duck sauce, the feast-day first course across the plain.
• Migliacci and necci — chestnut-flour flatbreads from the Pistoia mountains, savoury or sweet with ricotta.
• Confetti and berlingozzo — the traditional pastry, alongside almond brutti ma buoni.

Piazza della Sala

The fruit and vegetable market in piazza della Sala has been held every morning for centuries, around the Leoncino well: it is where the town buys its food, and where people stop in the evening. It is the place to start from when deciding where to have dinner.

In the glass

The Montalbano hills give Chianti; climbing towards the Apennines the food turns to mushrooms, game and chestnuts, and it is half an hour from the centre.