look at the flowers. he hurries us past any food that hasn t had a pulse. and we head up to his hideaway on the roof, where he does his cooking. oh my god. come on. we re starting with the chianina beef, the medici family favorite. the cattle has grazed the tuscan fields for 2000 years. they re of such high quality, that we re eating it raw. oh my god. that s the best sushi i ve ever had. [laughs] and now, the main event. so what he s doing now he says,
hangs over this region like the hot tuscan sun. their astonishing wealth made them one of the most powerful families on earth back in the 1500s. they practically bankrolled the renaissance, paying for artists and scientists like michelangelo and galileo to remake the world. tucci: how many days a week are you here? they are the medici. so come in. and i m going to meet one of them. you are in a place that the florentines call the casino dei medici . and this is a place created as a scientific laboratory the medici wanted all the bright minds in
same area where the medici family originated. jesus. this is like no steak i ve ever eaten. it s both crisp and delicate and the smoke carries the taste of the land. god damn it! it just melts in your mouth. it s what makes the regional cooking of italy about so much more than a tasty meal. but the palate is the organ that connects italy. i ll drink to that.
a very fancy festival. the one thing that everybody has in common is the food. yeah. this event is about as far as you can get from the wheat threshing festival. here florence s richest and most powerful families have gathered, as they have for centuries, to toast the city s new creative talent from chefs and musicians, to artists hoping to follow in the footsteps of da vinci and michelangelo. you are right now in a situation where, more or less 500 years ago, the medici would have done something like this. so we re going to go and have some food now. she knows me too well. really? it s a very sophisticated form of panzenella. this looks very different to the rustic bread salad we had for lunch. daniella: but it tastes of panzanella. it completely tastes of panzanella.
arrived? that s when it arrives more or less in that era then. which completely altered italian. completely. completely. .cuisine medici money cultivated this city, and the arts and the ideas that grew here in the renaissance changed how we all see the world. but this family also changed the way things taste. it may seem a long way from michelangelo to the greatest t-bone steak you ve ever eaten, but the medici had a hand in that too. secret. fabio picchi may look like he s fallen out of a renaissance painting, but he s actually a renowned chef, a born and bred florentine, and a master of meat. back in the 1500s most people wouldn t even get close to cuts of meat this good.