Florence Florence Travel Guide: Best Hotels, Restaurants & Experiences

Built in the sixteenth century for the noble Landini family, this Medici villa occupies twenty-two acres along the Arno, its gardens designed by Maria Chiara Pozzana and planted with Florence's signature irises. Il Verrocchio restaurant serves candlelit dinners overlooking the river, while the Arno Spa features a Roman pool and green marble Turkish bath. A fifteenth-century cellar hosts private Tuscan wine tastings with regional charcuterie.

A former 19th-century college founded by Barnabite Fathers crowns a secluded hilltop fifteen minutes from the Duomo, its original frescoes and coffered ceilings now framing 83 suites with private wine cellars. The old headmaster's office serves as a cocktail and cigar lounge, while olive-shaded gardens shelter a panoramic pool and the Aelia spa—ideal for families and travelers seeking Florentine grandeur with countryside calm.

Dante's muse Beatrice once called this fifteenth-century palazzo home, and the building's thirteen suites preserve that Renaissance grandeur with period aesthetics alongside modern comforts. Steps from Florence's cathedral, the property houses the Vita Nova spa with its indoor pool and sauna, while the MICHELIN-starred Atto di Vito Mollica adds serious culinary credentials to an already storied address.

Filippo Brunelleschi's 15th-century palazzo on Piazza Ognissanti preserves its Renaissance grandeur through Medici-era ceilings and the Winter Garden's remarkable stained-glass canopy. Bartenders rank among Florence's finest, marking each evening with champagne sabering, while a tea sommelier orchestrates afternoon service with Dammann Frères selections. Butler service attends premium suites around the clock, and Bentley tours extend the experience into Tuscan countryside.

A late 19th-century landmark where Enrico Fermi and Gabriele D'Annunzio once stayed, the Helvetia & Bristol anchors one of Florence's prettiest squares. The 2019 expansion brought 25 Anouska Hempel-designed rooms and central Florence's largest spa. Beneath the glass-ceilinged Bristol Winter Garden—its mint walls painted with Tuscan chinoiserie—Cibrèo Ristorante delivers polished Florentine classics to travelers who prize discretion and heritage.

Florence's oldest circular tower, the Byzantine Torre della Pagliazza, conceals one of the city's most intimate dining rooms—just six tables beneath a Murano glass chandelier. Chef Rocco De Santis holds two Michelin stars for his elaborate Mediterranean cooking, where Campanian influences shape refined fish and seafood preparations. The location, tucked into a quiet piazza off tourist circuits, rewards those who seek it out.

Chef Claudio Mengoni's one-starred table occupies a privileged position within Hotel Lungarno, where two balcony seats hover just steps from the Ponte Vecchio—reservations for these are fiercely contested. The kitchen delivers creative meat and fish preparations inflected with Tuscan sensibility, available through two tasting menus or à la carte. Oltrarno's intimate streets provide the perfect backdrop for this refined yet unfussy dining experience.

Beneath Murano glass chandeliers in the Palazzo della Gherardesca, Chef Paolo Lavezzini holds one Michelin star for contemporary cooking that favors clarity over complexity. His two tasting menus and à la carte showcase impeccable ingredients through preparations that feel both inventive and restrained. Marble surroundings and an air of Renaissance grandeur make this a compelling choice for romantic, occasion-driven dining in Florence.

Chef Ariel Hagen moves between his open kitchen and dining room tables, personally guiding guests through a farm-to-table tasting menu that earned both a Michelin star and Green Star for sustainability. The wine program impresses with rare bottles from the 1980s and 90s alongside Borgo Santo Pietro estate selections. Finish with the Caterina De' Medici's rose—a contemporary zuccotto layered with Alkermes liqueur.

Within the Villa Bardini museum complex, chef Filippo Saporito channels Italian tradition through a restlessly creative lens, sourcing meat, bread, and pasta from sustainable producers. The summer terrace delivers views toward Santa Croce amid aromatic herb gardens—cicadas humming as if the Tuscan hills had crept into the city. A dedicated vegetarian menu reflects the kitchen's farm-to-table convictions with equal finesse.

Behind the Renaissance grandeur of The St. Regis Florence, two ultra-private treatment cabins offer refuge from the city's cobblestone itineraries. The Iridium Spa holds exclusive rights to My Blend by Clarins, a skincare system calibrated to shifting life circumstances. Hydra-jet baths infused with essential oils precede a focused menu of eight facials and fourteen massages—intimate scale, uncompromising indulgence.

Behind a butter-yellow façade, treatment rooms open onto floor-to-ceiling views of the eleven-acre Giardino della Gherardesca, where centuries-old trees and contemporary sculpture create an atmosphere of cultivated tranquility. The signature Iris Sensations ritual—iris powder scrub, arnica wrap, therapeutic massage—draws directly from the surrounding gardens, while products from Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella employ formulations dating to the thirteenth century. Family programming includes private mother-child suites.