Delicious, with a persuasive moisture, slightly sweet and well-balanced: the taste notes of the panettone of the Four Seasons in Florence for Christmas 2023 are proposed again this year with the Panettone della Gherardesca, the result of the collaboration between the chef Paolo Lavezzini, the pastry chef Mariano Dileo and the artisan bakery and biscuit factory Leonardo Firenze. It becomes a sumptuous tribute to nature and the spontaneous flavors of the earth such as bay leaves, rosemary and chestnut honey, but it is also a call that takes you beyond Florence, to taste Apulian almonds and Brazilian nuts. It can only be purchased in the hotel."
Meeting Leonardo Santi was one of the greatest gifts this project could have given me.
Leonardo never planned to create what is today an icon of Florentine Excellence, his purpose was simpler: to share something good, sincere and authentic with his family and his community, as a pure act of love and memory. .
Perhaps Leonardo had well understood that small beautiful things have as much salvific value as the greatest works of man.
The cantuccio: a local biscuit that has never aspired to reach the aesthetic heroism of Michelangelo's David and yet shares his saving act, with its modest, pure and simple beauty and its evocative power.
A curious newspaper headline tells that one of his five sons accidentally made a mistake in the dough, and the reprimand was followed by the credit for an exceptional result to such an extent that Leonardo continued to “make a mistake in the dough” for the next fifty years!
[...] thanks to the farsighted work of his son Marco. It is to him that we owe the innovations that have transmitted and brought this love beyond the Italian borders, who imagined a future that honored and spread the simple and authentic taste of the past childhood that the scent of Santi biscuits has crystallized in Time.
Marco and his brothers jealously guard the notebook of recipes handwritten by "dad" Leonardo Santi; a precious treasure with crumpled edges and a human flavour.
It all started in the early 1960s, when Leonardo Santi in his bakery, to make biscuits and other delicacies, proposed traditional recipes, using only genuine raw materials and following his little intuitions to make the products he sells in the shop original. This is how the chocolate or fig cantucci were born; the Brutti ma Buoni in many variations, the cakes, the Easter doves and the panettoni for Christmas. His son Marco, in the heart of the Sant'Ambrogio neighborhood, continued experimenting and thus new specialties were born, including a special Mantua cake or the Pan Felice. And of course there is the bread, whose light dough with many alveoli is the result of choosing a flour with a lot of strength and measured leavening times. The dough and preparations take place in the open laboratory from which also come an irresistible schiacciata all'olio and many types of brioche, also served filled. Another point of sale, Leonardo Boutique, in via Porta Rossa 14.
«Paca» — the new Michelin-starred restaurant in Prato — celebrates Easter with the artisanal Colomba by the young pastry chef Gabriele Palumbo, in collaboration with Forno Leonardo of Florence. Born from a careful selection of ingredients, this Colomba is made with sourdough, leavened for 24 hours, dotted on the inside with Noalya salted caramel chocolate and covered on the outside with a voluptuous gianduia glaze. It releases its seductive scent as soon as the Easter cake is freed from its wrapping and the fragrance envelops the senses, precisely achieving the pastry chef's goal, that of expressing a high level of deliciousness and aromatic roundness. The tin that contains it features a reproduction of one of the paintings by the friend and artist from Pistoia Salvatore Magazzini, whose works are also exhibited in the restaurant's rooms, with its dense and decisive colors, which rest on the fleeting features of glimpses of warm and deep light.
Sixty years ago, in the heart of Tuscany, a man named Leonardo led his life according to three inviolable principles: offering traditional recipes, using only genuine raw materials, and following his personal insights to create exceptional products in his store. These values made his bakery famous throughout the region, attracting people from all corners of Tuscany in search not only of bread but also the sweets he sold there, including his famous chocolate cantucci. Leonardo, dedicated to experimentation, was never satisfied, and one day , by mistake, he created a unique recipe that allowed him to achieve a flavor and aroma he had never tasted before. And thus was born the secret ingredient that made Leonardo's cantucci in Florence unique, soft and fragrant. Sixty years later, in the old 1900 workshop in the Sant'Ambrogio district, Leonardo's son Marco continues his father's culinary art, producing traditional and new specialty cookies , from chocolate cantucci with orange peel to Brutti ma Buoni with pistachio, from traditional Mantovana to cookies with figs. Even today, at 90 years old, Leonardo is still present in Marco's life, teaching him the secrets of the trade and sharing valuable tips and recipes. In Marco's open workshop, traditional methods and quality ingredients are used, lovingly producing each product by hand. The aroma of freshly baked bread, Tuscan squash, fragrant cantucci and filled brioche permeates the streets of the historic center, drawing you powerfully to Marco's workshop.But today that bakery in the heart of Florence is so much more. The products have the stamp of Italian authenticity. The cantucci are soft with an enveloping flavour. Take a bite and enjoy the explosion of chocolate. Same goes for panettone or the traditional Easter dove. Soft to the touch and with an intense flavor, the temptation is too great for your sweet tooth. This is one of the products that, born in Florence, are now expanding throughout the world. Ordering Leonardo's cakes from the United States, for example, is extremely easy. Just go to the site, choose products from the catalogue, complete the shopping cart and enter your home address . If you order it from New York, within hours the package will be with you, ready to be unwrapped. And from your Manhattan home, savoring a chocolate cantuccio will transport you back to sunny Italy. This is the power of made-in-Italy products: to be recognizable everywhere, even thousands of miles away.
