Irene Firenze In Firenze

07/11/2024: Tl;dr - excellent food and service, but asking us to tip was odd. I had the (land) meat-based tasting menu and my wife had the fish and seafood-based tasting menu. We thoroughly enjoyed the dishes, and sampled each other's courses, and both agreed that the meat-based tasting menu was better. They offer several wine pairing options and have an extensive wine list comprising Italian and foreign (heavily French) red and white options, many with a decent 10-20 years of age, with a wide price range for any budget, with some of the bottles starting as low as 50€. Service was very friendly and extremely organised and professional. We were asked several times for our opinion on certain dishes. They called us a taxi at the end of the evening and made sure the driver knew where to take us. The only reason I'm taking away a star is that at the moment of paying the payment terminal asked us for tips in a very American style with the large [10%][15%][25%] buttons, which is the first time I've seen this in dozens of restaurants across various regions of Italy. I'm assuming this would look very odd to a guest from Italy or from nearby countries which also don't tip in that style, and I'm wondering if they turned on the tipping screen because they saw we were Canadian/American. It just feels very tourist-trap-y for a Michelin-starred restaurant. If you need tips to pay your staff, then perhaps you should just price the tasting menu higher.

04/11/2024: Amazing experience. They have a special vegetarian menu which all comes from their farm to table mission. Each dish was well thought out and not a typical vegetarian substitute as we’ve had at other Michelin star restaurants. The staff was amazing and the chef Ariel also came by to introduce himself which was very thoughtful. If you are Florence (and especially if you are vegetarian) this is a must try!