In Florence, the new restaurant by Santabarbara Desco e Cucina opens its doors to a more free-spirited, spontaneous, and convivial experience: select wines and a menu featuring “gourmet indulgences”
After setting the Florentine gastronomic scene ablaze with Santabarbara Desco e Cucina, Alessio Ninci and Lorenzo Chirimischi are launching a new chapter in their project: SANTABARBARA Desco e Cantina, a more instinctive, accessible, and everyday space, designed to introduce guests to the world of Santabarbara naturally, without formality, and without the need for a reservation.
While the first venture began as a contemporary dining experience centered around the open flames of the kitchen, SANTABARBARA Desco e Cantina embodies its freer, more tempting, and more indulgent spirit: a wine bar with “cave à manger”-style cuisine,” where wine serves as a starting point and small tastings become opportunities for discovery, conviviality, and desire.
Here, the wine invites you to linger, the cuisine makes you want to taste more, and “indulgences” become a pleasure to share. It’s the allure of those evenings that begin with a glass of wine and, between conversation and another taste, make you lose track of time.
The logo designed for this second restaurant also helps convey this identity; it features a snake—an ancient symbol of seduction, temptation, and transformation. This visual element perfectly captures the spirit of the new restaurant—more instinctive and provocative—inviting guests to indulge in the pleasure of a glass of wine, a bite of food, and the sin of gluttony.
It is no coincidence that the new venture chooses to express itself through the “sins of gluttony”: dishes designed to pair with wine and revive the culinary language that customers have come to love on Santabarbara’s menu. A dynamic, straightforward, and mouthwatering offering that invites you to step into the world of Ninci and Chirimischi’s cuisine—even if just for an aperitif, a quick stop, a spontaneous visit, or a casual evening out.
At the heart of SANTABARBARA Desco e Cantina is a carefully curated selection of wines, chosen with the same attention to detail that defines the restaurant’s cuisine: wines that tell the stories of their regions, producers, identities, and personalities. These are complemented by a menu of light, contemporary dishes, with preparations designed to be shared or enjoyed on your own.
The à la carte menu includes dishes such as baguette with herb-infused whipped butter, which can be topped with snail ragù; Vietnamese offal salad with cilantro, chili pepper, and Nuoc-Cham sauce; albacore tuna carpaccio with grated tomato, capers, anchovies, and salmoriglio; gray pork pâté en croûte with foie gras and giardiniera; leek, pecorino, and black truffle tart; fried rice with LILY-XO sauce, soy-marinated egg yolk, and mazzancolle shrimp; vol-au-vent with a ragù of mushrooms, morels, and Gruyère; conchiglioni au gratin with sausage and stracchino; grilled brioche with salted venison, iceberg lettuce, and whiskey sauce; and even more surprising offerings such as tofu, century egg, Judas’s ears, spring onion, and five-spice oil.
In addition to the menu, Desco e Cantina offers three tasting menus centered on the themes of vice and temptation: Intoxication, Gluttony, and Lust.
Ebbrezza is the most straightforward option: a glass of wine chosen from the chalkboard and a few off-menu tastings, ideal for an aperitif. Gola invites you to choose three dishes from the menu, accompanied by a selected glass of wine. Lussuria is the most generous tasting menu: four dishes from the menu and two paired glasses of wine, allowing you to be guided through a more complete experience.
“With this new venue, we wanted to create a gateway to the world of Santabarbara but with a focus on wine: a place where you can drop in even without a reservation, enjoy a fine glass of wine, sample something delicious, and let yourself be tempted,” say Alessio Ninci and Lorenzo Chirimischi. “It’s a more immediate and indulgent version of our project: less ritualistic, more instinctive, but with the same attention to ingredients, technique, and flavor.”
SANTABARBARA Desco e Cantina was thus conceived as a natural extension of Santabarbara, yet with its own identity: an easy-going spot designed for those seeking a quality dining experience without the formality of a traditional restaurant.
With this new project, Santabarbara reaffirms its commitment to offering a contemporary, sustainable, and authentic dining experience: one that minimizes formality and waste, celebrates the daily work behind the scenes, appeals to diverse audiences, and forges new connections between cuisine, wine, and hospitality.
Desco e Cantina is the alluring heart of Santabarbara: a place where you can walk in without a reservation, let yourself be tempted by a glass of wine, and discover, bite by bite, the most indulgent side of the hearth.
