Florence invented the Negroni. The story goes that in 1919, Count Camillo Negroni walked into Caffè Casoni on Via de' Tornabuoni and asked the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, to strengthen his Americano by replacing the soda water with gin. The result became the most copied cocktail in the world. Florence's relationship with good drinking is, in other words, foundational.
The challenge with Florence as a bar destination is the tourist economy that surrounds the Duomo and Uffizi. The central streets are thick with overpriced Aperol Spritzes served to people who queued three hours for a painting and now want to sit down. The genuinely good bars are two or three streets further in any direction, and they reward the small effort of finding them.
Florence makes a natural pair with Rome on any Italian bar circuit. Where Rome's scene is sprawling and neighbourhood-specific, Florence's best bars are concentrated enough to cover in two or three evenings. The Milan vs Rome bar comparison is also useful context: Florence sits stylistically closer to Milan's aperitivo culture than Rome's later, more chaotic approach to the evening.
The Best Bars in Florence Right Now
Oltrarno: The Right Side of the Arno
Every serious drinker in Florence gravitates toward the Oltrarno eventually. The neighbourhood south of the river is where the artisans, students, and long-term foreign residents live, and its bars reflect a different Florence from the galleries-and-gelato version that most visitors experience. The streets around Piazza Santo Spirito contain more good bars per square metre than anywhere else in Tuscany.
"Florence invented the Negroni, and the best bars in the city still treat that history as a living obligation rather than a historical footnote. Nowhere else in Italy makes a better one."
The Aperitivo Hour
Florence's aperitivo culture is worth building your evening around. Between 6pm and 8pm, the city's better bars switch to aperitivo mode: reduced-price drinks accompanied by complimentary snacks that, in the best places, amount to a light dinner. The quality of the aperitivo spread is how a Florentine bar signals its ambition and its respect for its neighbourhood clientele.
Rooftop Bars With Duomo Views
Florence's rooftop bar scene is built around one thing: the Duomo view. Brunelleschi's dome is one of the most compelling structures in the world to look at while drinking, and several hotel rooftops have made it their entire business model. The best of these are the Continentale Rooftop and the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Torre di Bellosguardo, the latter slightly out of the centre but with an unobstructed panorama that renders every other view in the city comparative.
For a comparative look at rooftop bar experiences across Italian cities, our guide to Rome's bar scene covers that city's rooftop options, and the rooftop bars category page has our worldwide rankings. Florence's Duomo views rank among the top 10 rooftop bar experiences in Europe.
What Florence Drinks
The Negroni dominates, and correctly so. But Florence's drinking culture extends in several other directions. Tuscan wines — Chianti Classico, Morellino di Scansano, Vernaccia di San Gimignano — are available everywhere and at prices that feel almost charitable. The Franciacorta craze has reached Florence from Milan; several bars now pour it by the glass as a house aperitivo. And craft beer, primarily from the new wave of Tuscan producers, appears on draft at a growing number of venues that have noticed the Florentine appetite for something beyond the Peroni default.
