All'Antico Vinaio In Firenze

All’Antico Vinaio is the chaotic sandwich heaven you never knew you needed. The paninis? Absolutely amazing—fresh, flavorful, and basically the size of your head. Totally worth the hype. Now, the ordering system? It’s like they took Italian street chaos and turned it into a sandwich queue. No clear lines, lots of shouting, and a general vibe of “just go with it and hope for the best.” You might wait 30 minutes, or you might accidentally become part of a local film crew—who knows. But honestly? I’d do it all over again. For that sandwich? I’d fight through the confusion, the crowd, and my own social anxiety. 4 stars for the flavor and the full experience—just eat it fast before someone asks for a bite.

Beautiful, rustic, old fashioned.

Delicious. The bread and filling are perfect.

It's as good as everyone says. The lines look long but they move fast!

Fresh schiacciata made throughout the day

Long line, but worth to wait.;)

Wonderful sandwiches! We tried the Venice Beach & Vegetarian 3 and loved both of them! Highly recommended!

Worth to wait! Huge portion, crispy focaccia, friendly staff especially ‘Milano 2’ 👻

Excellent sandwich bar serving the Florentine schiacciate. generously filled huge range of fillings. Not the cheapest but freshly made to order. Very generous size. You can have a cup of wine with it at a reasonable cost. Either takeaway or there is limited seating

"I HAVE to eat here once, before we leave the country," he said. "We can't NOT try a sandwich," he said. "If I don't get to stop here, I might cry," he said. So of course, we stood in line on a hot August afternoon for a chance to try one of their famous sandwiches. Thing is (and this seems to be a theme for all my Italy reviews) I wasn't all that hungry. But he was insistent, and so we compromised: he'd choose the sandwich, and we'd share it, because I knew I wouldn't be able to put down one on my own. The line moved relatively quickly but broke down once we actually made it to the counter. There was no sense to who went where to order when, so the impatient people behind us felt like they could step ahead of the group in front of them - and us - to order before anybody else, and there was nobody to tell them to stop behaving like jerks and get back in line. Despite that, we were able to get our order placed: he chose the Paradise (€11), which was topped with pistachio cream, mortadella, stracciatella and pistachio chunks. We also grabbed a couple of fizzy drinks (€4 each) before grabbing a fistful of napkins and heading out the door. There is no good spot to post up to eat in the area, and there was a lot of construction going on when we were there. We found a small piece of sidewalk close by and were able to hunker down with the coveted sandwich, which gave us a chance to pass it back and forth and comment on the flavor. It was, thankfully, quite tasty. It also wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but that didn't really matter to me, as I only had a handful of bites before I tapped. The sandwich was put together well, and it was positively swimming in the pistachio cream sauce. The mortadella had a good, subtle meaty flavor that paired surprisingly well with the nuts, the sauce and the cheese (and hey, as much as I love pistachios, I don't necessarily think you need to put it on or in every food item in the country.) It got to the point where we were almost dancing a jig anytime we took a bite, as we would have to dance our feet out of the way of dripping sauces. Unfortunately for the neighborhood, it seemed like every other patron ate around the same area and suffered the same sauce overflow as we did. The pigeons loved it, though. The trash cans, which were full to overflowing themselves - were the spot of the day for every pigeon in a five-mile radius.