Panificio Fiore

The people behind it

Panificio Fiore is a family bakery. According to Quotidiano di Puglia the shop has been open to the public since 1912 and has belonged to the Fiore family since around 1940, when Mimmo, grandfather of the current owner Antonio, took it over; the American magazine Milk Street also reports that it was Antonio's grandfather who started the family's tenure in 1940.

Today behind the counter is Antonio Fiore, known to everyone as Tony. Scatti di Gusto describes him as the face of one of the best-known bakeries in the Apulian capital, and BariToday interviewed him in 2024 together with chef Domingo Schingaro of I Due Camini at Borgo Egnazia to tell the house recipe. It was he who, in 2019, took Bari focaccia to Bologna for the challenge against Genoese focaccia at FICO Eataly World, telling greenMe that «Puglia fears no comparison» when it comes to food.

Sources: Quotidiano di Puglia — Focaccia e storia, dallo storico panificio Fiore spunta una chiesetta del '500 (24 gennaio 2023) · Christopher Kimball's Milk Street — Italy's best tomato focaccia, J.M. Hirsch (19 dicembre 2019) · Scatti di Gusto — Focaccia barese: i 12 migliori panifici di Bari (9 marzo 2021) · BariToday — Imparare a fare la focaccia barese con la ricetta del panificio più storico di Bari (20 settembre 2024) · greenMe — La focaccia più buona d'Italia è quella barese (27 maggio 2019)

What they make

The queen of the counter is Bari focaccia. Quotidiano di Puglia, reporting Gambero Rosso's selection in 2025, describes it as «tall and soft», its strength being that it is traditional. Milk Street, in its January-February 2020 issue, counted a dozen focacce in the display case: the most popular is tomato and olives, alongside versions with potato, with tomato and with artichoke. The oven holds 48 at a time and bakes them in just over ten minutes, and even making hundreds a day the lunchtime queue spills out of the shop and down the alleys.

Next to the focaccia there are taralli, mentioned by Telebari among the products that bring tourists to Bari Vecchia. In January 2023 the owner told the broadcaster that orders had quadrupled as visitors increased.

Sources: Quotidiano di Puglia — Bari, i migliori posti dove mangiare la focaccia secondo il Gambero Rosso: Panificio Fiore (8 maggio 2025) · Christopher Kimball's Milk Street — Italy's best tomato focaccia, J.M. Hirsch (19 dicembre 2019) · Telebari — Bari vecchia, restyling dello storico panificio Fiore (23 gennaio 2023)

Ingredients and territory

The recipe that won in Bologna, according to greenMe, is based on water, yeast, flour, re-milled durum semolina and boiled potatoes, topped with tomatoes, oregano and olives, for a soft dough with a crisp edge. Scatti di Gusto notes two house traits: Tony prepares the split tomatoes all together in a bowl and spreads them on the focaccia with all their juice; Milk Street stresses the very high hydration, over ninety percent, the rise of about four hours and the generous olive oil.

The heart is the wood-fired oven. «Here the oven has never been switched off since 1912, because it is wood-fired, and it takes many hours to bring it up to temperature each time», Antonio Fiore explained to BariToday. The quantities, he adds, change with the seasons: cold water when it is hot, lukewarm when it is cold, with yeast and rising times adjusted to the weather. The tomatoes also follow a precise step, a kind of cold sauce that is a family tradition.

Sources: greenMe — La focaccia più buona d'Italia è quella barese (27 maggio 2019) · Scatti di Gusto — Focaccia barese: i 12 migliori panifici di Bari (9 marzo 2021) · Christopher Kimball's Milk Street — Italy's best tomato focaccia, J.M. Hirsch (19 dicembre 2019) · BariToday — Imparare a fare la focaccia barese con la ricetta del panificio più storico di Bari (20 settembre 2024)

Recognition

In May 2019 FICO Eataly World, in Bologna, pitted Tony Fiore's Bari focaccia against the Genoese focaccia of the baker Zena Zuena: a panel of 100 experts judged, and the Bari focaccia won. greenMe reported it on 27 May 2019 under the headline «The best focaccia in Italy is the Bari one»; Telebari and Quotidiano di Puglia recall the same result as the «best focaccia in Italy» award.

After the win the City of Bari presented the owners with a plaque: «To Panificio Fiore, which brought the most authentic flavours of the city of Bari to triumph in a prestigious national competition», reports Quotidiano di Puglia. Milk Street, in 2019, also wrote that Fiore's focaccia had just been named the best in Italy. In 2025 the bakery is among the ten focaccia addresses in Bari indicated by Gambero Rosso and reported by Quotidiano di Puglia.

Sources: greenMe — La focaccia più buona d'Italia è quella barese (27 maggio 2019) · Telebari — Bari vecchia, restyling dello storico panificio Fiore (23 gennaio 2023) · Quotidiano di Puglia — Focaccia e storia, dallo storico panificio Fiore spunta una chiesetta del '500 (24 gennaio 2023) · Christopher Kimball's Milk Street — Italy's best tomato focaccia, J.M. Hirsch (19 dicembre 2019) · Quotidiano di Puglia — Bari, i migliori posti dove mangiare la focaccia secondo il Gambero Rosso: Panificio Fiore (8 maggio 2025)

Going there

The bakery is at Strada Palazzo di Città 38, in the heart of Bari Vecchia, beyond the Arch of San Nicola and a short walk from the Basilica. According to Quotidiano di Puglia there is a queue to get in on every day of the year, so it is worth allowing for it.

It is worth looking around, not only at the counter: on entering, to the right, the January 2023 refurbishment brought back to light three grey stone columns with decorated capitals supporting four small arches, remains of a small church that an inscription and the owners date to 1508; there are also images of Saint Nicholas and ancient jars. It is, the newspaper writes, probably one of the many churches that surrounded the Basilica, largely still hidden beneath the floor. The bakery fits well into a walk through the old town between the Basilica of San Nicola and the Cathedral; in December 2025 the Discoverbari guide still listed it among the focaccia stops, with Tony Fiore at the oven.

Sources: Scatti di Gusto — Focaccia barese: i 12 migliori panifici di Bari (9 marzo 2021) · Quotidiano di Puglia — Focaccia e storia, dallo storico panificio Fiore spunta una chiesetta del '500 (24 gennaio 2023) · Telebari — Bari vecchia, restyling dello storico panificio Fiore (23 gennaio 2023) · Discoverbari — Focaccia barese: 7 panifici da non perdere a Bari (16 dicembre 2025)

Products and flavours

The place

Bari

The old town as a first encounter with Puglia. Bari Vecchia between its two harbours, the Murat district, focaccia and orecchiette with turnip tops.

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Photo: Berthold Werner / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Puglia