Reid's List: Rome Restaurants

Fiaschetteria refers to the flasks from wine was once poured, to be accompanied by a simple plate of pasta and roast meat. Little has changed here since 1886—but the menu's a tad longer now and the place has been declared a national monument. The hardworking staff keeps the lucky 30 or so diners happy in this hole-in-the-wall ... » more

This is a fashionable and classic post-shopping restaurant, with such flavorful food and atmosphere we can forgive the splurge prices. The most coveted tables are on out the cobblestones, but the interior is a pleasant mix of rustic wood beams, brick arches, and Liberty-style mirrors and prints. The set-price menus are great deals, covering everything from antipasto to tiramisù ... » more

Everyone's favorite "secret gelateria"—which is code for "not (yet) crammed with tourists"—is, in point of fact, a fairly poorly kept secret. To look at San Crispino, you'd never even realize that this long, narrow shop sells ice cream—unless you knew that, before a gelateria in Florence invented the glass display case, traditional Italian ice cream parlors looked just like this: a long marble counters set with a row of tin lids. Lift any lid, and underneath, sunk into the counter, is a tub of gelato. Their honey-kissed signature flavor is called simply "San Crispino," though they feature many other velvety varieties made with fresh fruits or nuts and sinful delights laced with liqueurs ... » more

Everyone from local students to international movie stars line up outside Baffetto's doors for what just may be the best Roman-style pizza in town. One small room, lined with white ceramic tiles and snapshots of celebrity patrons, wraps around the wood-fired brick oven just inside the entrance, while two more dining rooms are squirreled away upstairs. This is a pizzeria, not a restaurant, so all they do is the traditional Roman crisp, thin-crust pizza. It comes in three sizes and with your choice of toppings (a small, plain "pizza margherita" costs around $5; a fully loaded large runs $10). The wait can be interminable, then the service brusque—very Roman. No reservations; no credit cards ... » more

This traditionalists' trattoria's been satisfying a full house of Romans for three generations. Its name is Trattoria Antonio Bassetti, but everybody calls it "Tonino"—not that there's a sign to even let you know it's there; just beads hanging in a doorway from which emanate the sounds of Roman dialect and clinking plates. It’s the sort of scene Fellini liked to film. No credit cards ... » more

This is one of Rome's oddest but most elegant dining experiences, worth the splurge for its unique food and atmosphere. Fine French cuisine and a daily exotic dish are prepared and served by a lay sisterhood of missionary Christians from five continents who dress in traditional costumes. Skip the plain stuccoed vaulting downstairs and climb to the piano nobile of this 16th-century palazzo, where the high ceilings are gorgeously frescoed. Dinner ends with a communal singing of the "Ave Maria of Lourdes" (some evenings the sisters interpret a short Bible story in ballet), followed by crêpes flambés. Tip generously—all the profits go to charity ... » more

You ring the front door bell promptly at 7:30pm (1pm for lunch) and a member of the lay sisterhood that runs this religious hospice near Piazza Navona appears to accompany you down to the basement refectory, three small rooms neatly laid out with sturdy pine furnishings. The set-price meal is cheap (€13), filling, and served course-by-course, family-style ... » more

This dirt-cheap, old-fashioned, utterly genuine Roman enoteca has kept up with the times—but not the prices—so while the wine shop looks every inch the vini olii of 1937, behind it and next door are large, fan-cooled rooms with long tables to accommodate the lunchtime crowds of local workers. The chalkboard menu of Roman standards changes daily ... » more

Sometimes all that Italian food is just too overwhelming and you just want a salad. A decade or so ago, a Roman restaurant entrepreneur realized just that (and the growing demand for more vegetarian dining options) and started a mini-chain of Roman restaurants dedicated to insalatoni, or giant salads. Their oversized salads are outstanding, as are their health-conscious dishes like gnocchi verdi al gorgonzola (spinach gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce) and pasta integrale (whole wheat pasta in a tomato and basil sauce) ... » more

Fast, cheap, reliable, central, and open through riposo, this modern cafeteria-style joint two blocks from the Pantheon has long been a budget standby for tourists and locals alike. who are determinedly tramping about the heart of the centro storico. It's a glorified tavola calda with delicious self-service hot foods and pizza and a fantastically convenient location a short stroll from Piazza Navona, and mere steps away from one of central Rome's biggest bus nexuses ... » more

The most famous gelato parlor in Rome is the 19th-century Giolitti, a few long blocks north of the Pantheon. It serves loads of traditional flavors such as stracciatella (a cross between fudge ripple and vanilla chocolate chip) and such typically odd Roman combos as a scoop of cioccolato (fudgy chocolate) alongside a scoop of limone (tart lemon sherbet) ... » more

Another Roman institution that's as vital to visit as the Colosseum or Vatican is the bar Tre Scalini on Piazza Navona, where you can sit outside watching the carnival of life on the piazza while indulging in a homemade tartufo—the gobstopper of the ice cream world, a tennis-ball sized lump of chocolate ice cream rolled in chocolate chunks with a cherry hiding in the middle ... » more

The Pantheon-area branch of everyone's favorite "secret gelateria"—which is code for "not (yet) crammed with tourists"—is, in point of fact, a pretty poorly kept secret. Their honey-kissed signature flavor is called simply "San Crispino," though they feature many other velvety varieties made with fresh fruits or nuts and sinful delights laced with liqueurs ... » more

Armando and Enzo's little 110-year-old osteria is usually the first place I go to eat every time I arrive back in Rome, partly for its excellent pasta all'amatriciana and flawless abbacchio scottaditto, partly for its setting: little tables set out on the life-as-theater piazza of Campo de' Fiori. (I certainly don't come for the service, which sometimes seems nonexistent.) No credit cards. ... » more

For more than 40 years, Margherita Tomassini has spent her mornings hand-rolling gnocchi (potato pasta dumplings that are served only, according to Roman tradition, on Thursdays), cutting fettuccine (best sauced cacio e pepe, with pecorino and cracked pepper), and stuffing fresh agnolotti (meat tortellini in ragù) for the lunchtime crowds at Sora Margherita, a signless nine-table osteria in the heart of Rome's Jewish Ghetto. No credit cards. ... » more

This third-generation classic eatery in the old Jewish Quarter rambles back in room after wood-beamed room hung with drying herbs and spices. If you want one of the coveted tables wedged between the Roman temple columns sprouting out of the sidewalk in front, call ahead. Great Roman Jewish specialties like carciofi alla giudia (flattened, tender fried artichokes). ... » more

Massimo Crippa and his brothers have transformed their grandmother's wine shop into a fashionable and lovable wine bar just off Campo de' Fiori. Although old-fashioned in style, with wood ceilings and shelves of vino, it's trendy in its culinary offerings—like most wine bars, it offers mixed platters of cheeses, salamis, and smoked fish and bruschette with daily dishes like lasagna, rustica ripiena (a cousin to vegetable quiche). ... » more

It doesn't get more atmospheric than this, a restaurant whose basement rooms are set into the restored arcades of Pompeii's 55 BC theater. It's like dining in a museum. For a touristy restaurant (bus tour crowds are not unusual), the cooking is surprisingly excellent. Among the top dishes are spaghetti alla carbonara and delicious cannelloni alla Pancrazio (pasta tubes stuffed with meat and cheese). ... » more

This dirt-cheap, old-fashioned, utterly genuine Roman enoteca has kept up with the times—but not the prices—so while the wine shop looks every inch the vini olii of 1937, behind it and next door are large, fan-cooled rooms with long tables to accommodate the lunchtime crowds of local workers. The chalkboard menu of Roman standards changes daily ... » more

This trattoria with a unique location on Rome's tiny Tiber Island is best described as refined rustic, with rough-hewn beams, cozy rooms, elegant service, a great wine list, and a menu that combines inventive techniques with Roman classics. At these prices, the portions could be larger, but the quality is impeccable. Aldo Trabalza and his sons honor the memory of Aldo's mother, Sora Lella Fabbrizi—cook, unlikely star of Italian TV back in the 1960s, and archetypal Roman character—by serving traditional favorites, innovative lighter fare, and half-forgotten dishes with centuries of pedigree ... » more

Fast, cheap, reliable, central, and open through riposo, this modern cafeteria-style joint two blocks from the Pantheon has long been a budget standby for tourists and locals alike. who are determinedly tramping about the heart of the centro storico. It's a glorified tavola calda with delicious self-service hot foods and pizza and a fantastically convenient location a short stroll from Piazza Navona, and mere steps away from one of central Rome's biggest bus nexuses. ... » more

Tucked into a tiny, triangular, sloping piazza just off the southeast corner of Campo de' Fiori you can join the line of people threading to the back of the bare room to order a filet of baccalà (salt cod) fried golden brown da portar via (wrapped in paper to eat as you passeggiata). ... » more

Fans swirl overhead in the summer, when the huge windows are opened to give passers-by glimpses at the sepia-toned frescoes ringing the main room of this Art Deco 1906 Italian beer hall owned by the country's leading brewery. Elbow a spot at a tiny wooden table in between lunching businessmen to pack in lasagne, meatballs with potatoes, or roast chicken. The German-style arrosto misto platter is piled high with sausages, roast meats, sauerkraut, and goulash with potatoes... ... » more

This gourmet wine bar of long pedigree is lined with dark wood benches and paneling, its ceiling a grid of double-stacked shelves crowded with wine bottles. The wine list features more than 1,200 labels, around a dozen of which are available at any given time for tasting by the glass. To accompany your vintage, order a mixed platter of cheeses or cured meats, all of them hand-crafted regional specialties from across Italy ... » more

In the 1950s Andrea Pandolfi emigrated to Rome from the Abruzzi mountain town of Amatrice—the place that gave the world amatriciana, that piquant sauce of tomatoes and guanciale bacon. Although his restaurant is now managed by son Marco, little else has changed in more than 40 years at this classic trattoria ... » more

You can sit outside at the box canyon–like end of the road as part of an old-fashioned Roman street dining scene or opt for the Liberty-style interior of the Ricci family's 103-year-old pizzeria. The starched-shirt service and small pies of Est! Est! Est!—named after a sweet white wine from northern Lazio—have long been popular with the nearby police station and other neighbors as well as visitors. ... » more

This gourmet wine bar of long pedigree is lined with dark wood benches and paneling, its ceiling a grid of double-stacked shelves crowded with wine bottles. The wine list features more than 1,200 labels, around a dozen of which are available at any given time for tasting by the glass. To accompany your vintage, order a mixed platter of cheeses or cured meats, all of them hand-crafted regional specialties from across Italy ... » more

For a gourmet experience and a light meal that won't break the bank (but may bend it to €30 or more, depending on the wines you select), head to this postmodern wine bar. For Marco and Carla Trimani, serving fine foods to accompany glasses of wine chosen from among their thousands of labels is merely an extension of the family's 190 years in the vino trade. The wine bar's tiny rooms, long stylish bar, and outdoor gazebo are tinged with elegance and popular with intellectuals and journalists. The food is excellent, from cheese assortments or Italian salamis to dishes such as carrè d'agnello alle erbe con cavolo rosso (herbed loin of lamb with red cabbage). ... » more

This relaxed and modernly spare cheap eat near the train station has since 1975 served filling Etririan meals for well under $20. Start with an antipasto of dulot (sheep innards—very traditional) or sambusa (meat and vegetable rolls). ... » more

Everyone's favorite "secret gelateria"—which is code for "not (yet) crammed with tourists"—is, in point of fact, a fairly poorly kept secret. To look at San Crispino, you'd never even realize that this long, narrow shop sells ice cream—unless you knew that, before a gelateria in Florence invented the glass display case, traditional Italian ice cream parlors looked just like this: a long marble counters set with a row of tin lids. Lift any lid, and underneath, sunk into the counter, is a tub of gelato. Their honey-kissed signature flavor is called simply "San Crispino," though they feature many other velvety varieties made with fresh fruits or nuts and sinful delights laced with liqueurs ... » more

Giovanni's is such a warm and friendly little hole-in-the-wall osteria halfway between Trastevere and the Vatican it's easy to forget that many of its clients, aside from a cadre of neighborhood regulars, are relatives just coming from visiting inmates at the nearby Regina Coeli prison. Stefano and Domenico (always in his white waiter's coat) bustle about the cozy room serving the 12 tables of hungry customers... ... » more

Il Matriciano's relaxed-yet-refined atmosphere, country-style fare, and sidewalk tables just a few blocks from the Vatican Museums have kept it a darling of politicians and the movie industry for more than 80 years. At these prices, the portions could be larger and the sauces more ample, but the cooking is impeccable. It would be a sacrilege if you or someone at your table didn't order the namesake bucatini all’amatriciana (though they skimp a bit on the meat)... ... » more

Sometimes all that Italian food is just too overwhelming and you just want a salad. A decade or so ago, a Roman restaurant entrepreneur realized just that (and the growing demand for more vegetarian dining options) and started a mini-chain of Roman restaurants dedicated to insalatoni, or giant salads, and lighter, low-fat fare. This branch is located right across from the Vatican walls. Their oversized salads are outstanding, as are their health-conscious dishes like gnocchi verdi al gorgonzola (spinach gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce) and pasta integrale (whole wheat pasta in a tomato and basil sauce)... ... » more

The Silvestri family's rough-and-ready eatery tucked between Trastevere alleys Vicolo delle Cinque and Via del Moro has found its way into virtually every guidebook as the poster child for Trastevere osterie. But the bulk of its patronage remains neighborhood cronies who pack into the pair of rooms and few communal picnic tables squeezed into the triangular piazza out front. You'd do well to peruse the hand-scribbled list of dishes posted out front before heading in, for after spreading the wax paper on your table and plunking down a carafe of the house wine, the brisk, brusque, but efficient waiters (Augusto, his wife, and their adult children) will expect you to know what you want without bringing you a menu... ... » more

The wood-ceiling interior and Roman murals between the brick arches of this Trastevere standby are as much of an attraction as the excellent cooking and noisy banter—plenty of Roman dialect still mixed in with the tourist tongues. But they really get stars for the outstanding melt-in-your-mouth lasagna, the only version on the planet better than my mother's. (Mom, incidentally, agrees.)... ... » more

Trastevere's famed pizza parlor is always thronged with locals and visitors, but the hordes haven't led it to compromise taste or prices (trust me: I've been coming here since I was 11 years old). The sidewalk tables are hard to come by, but the street's fairly trafficked, so I always choose the closely spaced tables inside. The service is swift and brusque in true Trastevere style, and despite its almost terminal popularity, Ivo remains an excellent place to introduce yourself to genuine Roman wood-oven pizza... ... » more

A young friend of mine was recently in Rome to visit his girlfriend during her junior year abroad and he asked me for a restaurant where they could celebrate their anniversary. Top of my list was this Trastevere classic with a convivially romantic outdoor dining patio, the tables arrayed under big umbrellas on the cobblestones of a pocket-size piazza just off Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. La Tana dei Noantri—the name means "our tavern" in Trasteverino dialect (or, more accurately, "the tavern of us others," a subtle way of defining local residents as separate from the Romans on the other side of the Tiber)—has a vast menu with seemingly limitless offerings of quite good cuisine impeccably served by crisply bow-tied waiters. My faves: the tasty stracciatella romana (egg-drop soup with parmigiano reggiano) or the wonderfully spicy penne all'arrabbiata (pasta quills in a "hopping mad" tomato sauce spiked with hot peperoncino peppers)... ... » more

Giovanni's is such a warm and friendly little hole-in-the-wall osteria halfway between Trastevere and the Vatican it's easy to forget that many of its clients, aside from a cadre of neighborhood regulars, are relatives just coming from visiting inmates at the nearby Regina Coeli prison. Stefano and Domenico (always in his white waiter's coat) bustle about the cozy room serving the 12 tables of hungry customers... ... » more

Mario's is renowned for its €10 fixed-price menu—pasta, chicken or veal, veggies, fruit, water, wine, even pane coperto and the service charge—which is what earns this fine but otherwise unexceptional Trastevere trattoria of rough beamed ceilings and Roman prints on the walls a star... ... » more

This trattoria with a unique location on Rome's tiny Tiber Island is best described as refined rustic, with rough-hewn beams, cozy rooms, elegant service, a great wine list, and a menu that combines inventive techniques with Roman classics. At these prices, the portions could be larger, but the quality is impeccable. Aldo Trabalza and his sons honor the memory of Aldo's mother, Sora Lella Fabbrizi—cook, unlikely star of Italian TV back in the 1960s, and archetypal Roman character—by serving traditional favorites, innovative lighter fare, and half-forgotten dishes with centuries of pedigree... ... » more

To go even more traditional than gelato, cross to the Trastevere side over the bridge from Tiber Island. There, in warm weather only, along a bend in the busy Lungotevere degli Anguillara boulevard, is parked one of Rome's last remaining granita carts. This is where they still hand-shave giant blocks of ice into a cup and pour sugary flavored syrups on top—the original "Italian Ice," and ancient precursor to gelato. ... » more

The Mariani family started this elegant temple of traditional cuisine six generations ago as a blue-collar wine shop patronized by workers from the slaughterhouse across the street, men who received the undesirable quinto quarto ("fifth fourth") of the day's butchering (offal, tails, feet, and so on). Checchino has turned these remains into culinary masterpieces of poor man's food, like bucatini alla gricia (fat, hollow spaghetti tossed with pecorino cheese and guanciale, a pork-jowl bacon) and rigatoni con pajata (short pasta tubes tossed with a light tomato sauce and snippets and knots of the braised suckling calf intestine with the mother's milk clotted inside—a classic Roman dish that is equal parts disgusting, heart-wrenchingly cruel, and inescapably delicious)... ... » more

This ultratraditional Testaccio osteria is set in the echoey tiled rooms of what appears to be an old dock warehouse, with tall arches, local soccer team photos on the walls, and a die-hard crowd of neighborhood families. It ain't fancy but gets kudos for its genuineness and its heaping platters of true Roman classics ... » more

Perfectly placed for a post-catacombs lunch, this is one of Rome's few remaining countryside trattorie, where entire extended families gather for Sunday lunch under masses of wisteria. This garden seating extends back from the original roadside inn, with its tightly spaced tables under cozy wood-beam ceilings and painting-covered walls... ... » more

This branch of (perhaps) Rome's best gelateria is just a few hundred meters northeast of the start of the Appian Way—well worth a detour if you're on a bike. Their honey-kissed signature flavor is called simply "San Crispino," though they feature many other velvety varieties made with fresh fruits or nuts and sinful delights laced with liqueurs... ... » more