Caffè Gilli named Italy's bar of the year by Gambero Rosso

Caffè Gilli, a 1733 institution on Florence's Piazza della Repubblica, has been named Bar of the Year in Gambero Rosso's 2027 guide to Italy's best bars.

The guide, I Migliori Bar d'Italia, evaluated 912 venues this year, 140 of them new entries, and handed its top distinction, the Tre Tazzine, or Three Cups, to 57 bars nationwide. Gilli's award, officially the Premio Illy Bar dell'Anno, singles out one venue from that shortlist, a list that stretches from grand cafes in historic squares to neighbourhood espresso bars.

Caffè Gilli's return to form

A good espresso used to be the whole test. Now it is just the entry fee.

Run by the Valenza family, Gilli renovated at the start of 2026, pairing its restored 18th-century setting with a programme that now spans breakfast pastries, a seasonal food menu and a cocktail list judged alongside the coffee itself. Gambero Rosso cited that range, from morning service to aperitivo, as the basis for the win.

Two further honours went elsewhere in Tuscany and on the Adriatic coast. The Bar e Territorio prize, for sourcing tied to local producers, went to Pane & Marmellata in Lucca, which runs its own farm. The Novelty of the Year award went to Manì in Rimini, opened in April inside the Savoia Hotel.

A new scoring system after 27 years

The 2027 edition also changes how bars are judged. For 27 years, Gambero Rosso scored coffee and food separately, through its Chicchi, beans, and Tazzine, cups, symbols, the same two-track logic that still splits its Tre Bicchieri wine guide by colour and region. That split is gone here, replaced by a single Tazzina rating from one to three that folds coffee, pastry, food, drinks and service into one figure.

Lombardy leads the regional count with 135 listed bars, ahead of Sicily on 79 and Emilia-Romagna on 78, a spread the guide reads as proof the modern Italian bar now competes on the same terms nationwide: a good espresso is the entry fee, not the whole test anymore.