Jon Seargent, my art history teacher, had a thankless job. There were about 30 of us in my year at college. We wanted to be photographers and film-makers, and he had to instil in us some kind of broader context. I often think of him, poor bugger, and I particularly remember what he told me about Stendhal syndrome.
Stendhal, author of Le Rouge et le Noir (1830), was one of the more sensitive souls of 19th-century European letters. He used to react to objects or images that were overpoweringly lovely by fainting — a fact he first discovered in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, which must have been inconvenient and embarrassing at the time.
These days, the tourists would just step over him for a selfie in front of the altarpiece. I imagined Stendhal syndrome was something of an exaggeration. You know, the writer garnishing his own myth. I was convinced it was all fluff. That was, until I encountered Sostanza.
Trattoria Sostanza is hidden in a Florentine backstreet between the malodorous Arno river and the magnificent Santa Maria Novella railway station. The location seems appropriate, given its grungy frontage, with health department certificates and odd handwritten notices.
It was clearly once a working men’s caff. Inside, there’s a small bar to one side with an ancient wooden fridge. The ceiling is vaulted, with rickety fans, the tables are scratched marble, the chairs unmatched. There are public toilet tiles on the walls and the floor is a terrazzo in brown, beige and black, like old men’s teeth set in cement. At the back, half-concealed behind a rood screen of dark wood and reeded glass, is a small kitchen with a wood oven. Outside it’s 40C. Inside it’s naturally cool, crowded with Italian families. It looks like it hasn’t been touched since 1945 and it is utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
Working my way down a short handwritten menu I order some Parma ham and salamis, Tuscan and fennel. They cut them daily on an ugly old bastard of a slicer lurking on the bar. This thing wouldn’t pass health and safety even if you wore Kevlar gloves and full body armour, but it turns out a fine display of softly textured and sparklingly fresh cold cuts. Pasta is offered with meat, tomato or butter sauce. Just a handful of penne, tossed in the sauce as well as topped with it. I had the tomato, which was simple, clean and light.
Sure, you can come here for a bistecca Fiorentina the size and weight of the Medici family bible. You can order more modest beef or veal steaks or Florentine tripe. One of the house specials is a magnificent artichoke pie, but, trust me, what you want is the chicken breast in butter sauce. Oh yes. That’s definitely the one.
First, they count how many there are of you at the table — in my case, one. I like to observe my religious rites alone to better concentrate the mind. Then they root out the right size of pan to serve everyone at the same time. These things look like they were made at the end of the war by beating bits of wrecked planes into shape with hammers; somewhere between a balti and a washing-up bowl with tin handles riveted on.
There are two neatly trimmed, skin-on chicken breasts per person, dipped in egg wash and flour, laid softly in the pan with about half a regular size block of butter then shoved into the big oven.
The butter sizzles, the chicken fat renders out. A chef in a comedy tall hat spoons the boiling butter over the meat again and again. A crust forms, the butter caramelises everything so deeply you’ll reckon Cennino Cennini’s been round with the gold leaf again. Then, and only then, do they bear it to the table with a kind of broodingly muscular ceremony. They’ll offer you a plate, which you will refuse. They’ll warn you the bowl is only just shy of white heat, but you won’t care. The waiter will pick up fork and spoon, silver service style, and wring out a couple of lemons over the top. The butter will foam and boil as the lemon juice hits it.
The waiter steps back, proud of a job well done, looks at your face then walks away, content that you’ve gone into some kind of greed-shock. I mean, it’s just so ridiculously good on every level. The smell rocks you back in your creaking chair, your breath sucked out of you with nostalgia for the best chicken your mother ever roasted. The high lemon notes will have you salivating like Pavlov is personally ringing every bell in Florence. You eat, knowing it’s far too hot but not giving a damn. You know how this goes: disorientating, sensuous, quasi-religious.
This was it, full on Stendhal syndrome. I managed not to pass out purely by gripping the table edge until my knuckles went white and swearing floridly under my breath.
I’d ordered a salad to cut the richness and it was the only low point in the meal. Five halves of suspiciously near-identical tomatoes dressed perfectly well in oil, salt and balsamic. These days, even in Tuscany, spiritual home of the tomato, hydroponically grown, highly policed wonder-tomatoes are ubiquitous. They are cheaper, better looking, permanently in season and subtly depressing. I sometimes despair that I’m going to have to spend my remaining years roaming the planet in search of the last real specimens, a worn-out and lonely tomato Blade Runner.
I am a lesser aesthete than Stendhal. None of Florence’s great art made me faint. But everything Giotto could do with pigment, a weasel tail and four square metres of wet plaster, the boys at Sostanza can do with butter and chicken. The food is a work of art and if you have to step over my unconscious body to take a selfie with it, go right ahead.
Tim Hayward is the winner of best food writer at the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2022
Follow Tim on Twitter @TimHayward and email him at tim.hayward@ft.com
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