Florence’s Truffle Season: When to Go, What to Order, and Where to Eat It 

Florence’s Truffle Season: When to Go, What to Order, and Where to Eat It

For the traveller who plans trips around ingredients, here’s the complete truffle calendar and how to eat it properly in Florence.

Truffle season is one of the best times to visit Florence, since as Tuscany’s truffles are harvested they start making their way onto menus across the city, giving visitors the chance to try them at their freshest. If you’re thinking about timing your Florence trip around truffle season, this guide covers when to come, what to order, and everything in between.

The Truffle Calendar, Honestly

There are several types of truffle to find around Florence over the course of a year, and it’s worth knowing when each one is in season before you plan a trip around it.

White truffles are typically in season from October through December, with the best of the harvest usually arriving in late autumn, and during this window upscale restaurants across Florence often shave fresh truffle directly over dishes, since it’s traditionally served raw rather than cooked. They’re an expensive variety, so expect to pay more for anything made with them.

Black winter truffles arrive later in the year and stay readily available through the colder months, usually at a more affordable price than white truffles, which makes them a favourite among chefs. You may also come across summer black truffles, or scorzone, which have a milder flavour and cost very little, though it’s worth remembering they’re a different variety from the prized winter black truffle rather than a cheaper version of the same thing.

Much of Tuscany’s truffle production comes from the hills right around Florence, chief among them the San Miniato Hills between Florence and Pisa and the Mugello river valleys, and it’s exactly the kind of ground we and a handful of other tour operators take people into if you fancy going truffle hunting yourself.

If you’re a serious truffle lover, November is a particularly good time to visit, thanks to the San Miniato White Truffle Festival, held over several weekends and built entirely around the region’s prized white truffle. It’s a great chance to sample a wide range of truffle infused dishes, browse local products, and see freshly harvested truffles for sale.

How to Order Truffles Like You Mean It

If you’ve never had truffle in a restaurant, ordering it can feel a little confusing at first. Stick to hot, simple dishes such as tagliolini or a fried egg, where the fresh truffle can take centre stage, since the server will usually shave it directly over the hot food at the table, and the heat alone is enough to release the truffle’s flavour without needing to cook the truffle itself.

Fresh white truffles in particular are traditionally shaved raw over warm dishes rather than cooked, so if a restaurant is cooking fresh white truffle, treat that as a major red flag and avoid it altogether. It’s also worth watching for truffle oil being presented as a substitute for the real thing, since many inexpensive truffle oils contain little or no actual truffle and lean on synthetic aroma to recreate the smell instead; they can still work as a flavouring, but they’re a very different product from fresh truffle.

Eating fresh truffle isn’t cheap, and restaurants often charge for it by weight, usually by the gram, or add a separate truffle supplement to the price of a dish, with some places charging around €15 a gram and others more, depending on the type and quality of the truffle and the restaurant itself. Finally, be cautious about fresh truffle dishes outside the normal season: if you’re in Florence when a particular variety isn’t in season and see it advertised as “fresh,” ask the server what type it is and where it comes from, so you don’t end up paying for something that isn’t what it claims to be.

Where to Eat Truffles in Florence

As soon as truffle season arrives, the restaurant scene in Florence takes on a new character, with kitchens across the city adapting their menus and introducing new truffle focused dishes and seasonal specials.

You’ll need to decide whether a market stall or a white tablecloth restaurant better suits your plans. At Mercato Centrale, for example, you’ll find places like Savini Tartufi, where you can try truffle dishes for a relatively low price, and pick up jarred truffle products to take home and cook with yourself. At the other end of the spectrum, restaurants such as Il Palagio offer a far more extravagant experience in a polished dining room, with a full menu built around dishes served with five grams of truffle and the option to add more.

Keep in mind that Florence’s restaurants generally start getting livelier after 8pm, as the evening goes on, tables fill, and the atmosphere picks up, which makes it a good time to head out for a truffle dinner. And don’t limit yourself to the city either: a day trip to the San Miniato Hills, one of Tuscany’s best known truffle producing areas, means spending the day trying dishes made with truffles harvested from the very ground around you.

When truffle season arrives, our Florence tours serve it the traditional way, freshly shaved over your dish right at the table.

The Truffle Cheat Card

Beyond the Shaving: The Hunt

There’s more to truffles than having them shaved over your pasta. The hunt itself is a fascinating part of truffle culture, and it’s something you can join us for, which gives you a much better sense of how these prized ingredients make their way onto your plate.

Because truffles grow underground, they’re difficult for humans to find on their own, which is where trained dogs come in. A tartufaio, or truffle hunter, takes the dog out into the countryside, where it uses its sense of smell to pick up a truffle buried beneath the soil, and once the dog signals a find, the tartufaio digs it out by hand.

The locations where truffles turn up are known as guarded spots, and experienced tartufaio are understandably reluctant to reveal their best ones, since a good patch can be genuinely valuable. Truffle hunters also tend to head out around dawn, when the countryside is quiet and there’s nobody else around to notice where they’re going.

Frequently Asked Questions

When exactly is white truffle season? From October through to December, with late autumn as the peak, Florence enters its main truffle season, and restaurants across the city start adding truffle dishes to their menus, which makes it an especially good time for food lovers to visit.

Is truffle oil real truffle? Usually not. Most truffle oils rely on synthetic aroma to create their flavour, and only some contain a small amount of actual truffle, so either way it’s no substitute for the fresh truffle shaved at your table.

Can I do a truffle hunt as a day trip from Florence? Yes, and it’s one of the best ways to get to know the region’s truffle culture. You’re picked up from your hotel and taken into the Tuscan countryside, where you’ll meet real hunters and follow them and their trained dogs as they search, hearing plenty of stories along the way before finishing with a meal built around fresh truffle.

What’s the best way to build a truffle day into a Florence trip? Start in the Tuscan countryside with a truffle hunt, then head back into Florence, stopping at Mercato Centrale to shop for truffle products before ending the day at an upscale restaurant with a meal that includes fresh truffle shaved at your table.

Come in season, order it shaved at the table, and let us show you the rest.

Sources

Savini Tartufi. (n.d.). Ristoranti & punti vendita.

Il Palagio. (n.d.). Il Palagio, Florence Italian restaurant. Four Seasons Hotel Firenze.

Dunn, K. (2026, April 29). Florence after 8pm: Why the best meal of your trip starts when the tourists go home. Eating Europe.

Eating Europe. (n.d.). Florence food tours.

Yahoo Travel. (n.d.). What it’s actually like to go truffle hunting in Tuscany.