When in Rome: How to Eat Like a Local in Italy's Capital

Dissecting the food culture of a city as ancient and eternal as Rome is like conducting an archaeological dig—only the site is still bustling with the daily rhythms of modern life.

“Very few cities have such distinct cuisines that stand so strongly on their own,” says Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer. “How many cities could support dozens of cookbooks dedicated to their local dishes alone? Rome is one of them.”

Rome’s storied, deeply rooted cuisine is fiercely protected by the city’s culinary traditionalists, who are wary of anything they deem “un-Roman.” At the same time, it draws waves of starry-eyed visitors on a mission to eat their way through the canon of classic dishes.

“You have these two monolithic entities that are exerting a major gravitational force on the food scene: One is the tourists, who want all the things they’ve read about, like pasta alla gricia, amatriciana, carbonara, and pizza al taglio, and the other is the traditionalists—and Italians are largely pretty conservative when it comes to food,” says Peter Barrett, a food writer and former Rome resident who we turned to for insight into the city's food scene. “So for the new generation of chefs, the challenge is threading the needle—pushing the envelope while still maintaining a deep respect for the ingredients and traditions.”

Luckily, a new wave of Roman chefs is striking that balance admirably—serving dishes that nod to tradition without being confined by it. They’re not throwing out the classics, but they’re refusing to stop there.

The result is that Rome—seat of emperors and popes, home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and shaped by generations of cooks, butchers, and bakers from across its layered history—remains one of the world’s great food cities, still thriving as a 21st-century crossroads of cultures.

And the ultimate beneficiary of all of this? You, the visitor to Rome, who can eat incredible meals, whether tried-and-true classics, pitch-perfect modern innovations, or both.

For our second round of Global Eats—a food lover's guide to the culinary capitals of the world—we asked Barrett, the author of the Things on Bread Substack and a Roman resident for two years, and Sara Levi, a native Roman and chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy at Rome, to share their insight into what—and where—to eat in the Capital of the World. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.)

Where to Eat in Rome

Sora Margherita

Piazza delle Cinque Scole, 30

Both our experts started off their tours of Roman dishes by delving into carciofi alla Romana, Roman-style braised artichokes, a highly seasonal spring dish requiring someone in the kitchen who knows how to prepare them properly. In the right hands, the result is meticulously cleaned hearts braised with white wine, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and herbs.

“I think of this as a really iconic Roman dish,” Levi says. “People coming from the United States, where people eat artichokes much more rarely, tend to think of them as a vehicle for dips, but here they're unadorned, so you get the purity of this perfectly cooked artichoke that is literally put on a plate with a little bit of braising liquid and oil and nothing else.”

Arguably the best thing about the Roman style of serving artichokes? They eliminate all the work for you, unlike, say, the French style, where they’re typically served with the leaves on for dipping into melted butter or vinaigrette.

“If you’re used to French-style artichokes, you have to work till you get to the heart,” Barrett says. “In the Roman artichoke, you don’t have to wade through a thicket of leaves to get to the good stuff. What ends up on the plate is entirely edible—you can fork-and-knife the whole thing. It’s still kind of al dente with a little resistance, and the olive oil and artichokes have this grassy green kind of simpatico—they really have something to say to each other, and it’s fantastic. It’s one of my favorite vegetable dishes.”

Barrett is still a fan of the first place he ever had the dish in Rome, Sora Margherita. “I went there when I was 19, 20 years old as a student and it was just the local place,” he recalls. “It didn’t even have a sign, it just had newsprint tablecloths, and you went in and looked at the piece of paper with the five things they were making that day. We’d usually get an artichoke to start if it was in season, and then a pasta, and at that time you could get all of that plus a liter of wine for 10 bucks apiece.”

Still under the same ownership, Sora Margherita hasn’t changed that much since, even though word’s gotten out about the great food there.

“Now the walls are covered with newspaper clippings about the restaurant, postcards from customers, and the service is brusque but congenial,” he says. “Think of tumblers of fruit water and wine and communal seating where if you can’t fill a table you sit next to strangers in almost school-desk chairs of chunky wood.”

Piatto Romano

Via Giovanni Battista Bodoni, 62

Levi is a fan of the carciofi alla Romana—and almost anything else in season—at Piatto Romano.

“The thing that stands out about that restaurant is that the owner, Andrea, really goes out of his way to source fruits or wild foraged greens that are hard to find these days,” she says. 

When you enter his restaurant, you see Andrea’s foraged bounty of the day in baskets laid out on a table right in front of the kitchen. “He’ll find things like these crazy lemons where you can eat the whole thing, and people will walk in and say, ‘What is this? Where’d you find them? Where’d they come from?’ And it’s always from some town not far away, and he’ll put whatever he’s found that day in one of his dishes that day.”

Barrett’s also a fan. “Very unostentatious, no pretense whatsoever, paper tablecloths, the whole thing,” he says. “Just reliable bangers across the board on the menu.” 

Testaccio Market

Via Aldo Manuzio, 66b

Not surprisingly, Piatto Romano’s Andrea seems to find many of his hard-to-source foraged treasures at Testaccio Market nearby. It’s a sprawling, covered marketplace of over 100 vendors that’s geared toward local food lovers rather than tourists.

“My advice, if it’s not your first time in Rome, is to rent a place with a kitchen and get the fixings for breakfast every morning and then make yourself lunch or dinner based on what you’re finding at the market,” Barrett says. “It helps you feel like more of a local because you have to visit six or seven stalls for each meal, you’re meeting people and you’re getting what Romans are eating right then and there, seeing what’s in season. If you’re interested in food, there’s no better way to understand the city, even if it’s just making a bowl of pasta and salad.”

Between all the grocery shopping, stop by Mordi e Vai, a grab-and-go, glass-countered panini stall inside the market, for a classic Roman offal sandwich, which is “absolutely as O.G. Roman as it gets,” Barrett says of the “excellently made tripe or tongue or brain” on white bread (though a brisket sandwich is usually available “if you’re too queasy for tripe or spleen”).

Armando al Pantheon

Salita de' Crescenzi, 31

Many Americans have a fantasy of indulging in classic Roman dishes in the shadow of one of its many beautiful, historic monuments, and there’s no shame in it. But if you do so, make sure you go to a restaurant with worthy food as well as spectacular views.

“One of my glib rules is never eat within sight of a major monument,” Barrett says. “The one exception to that is Armando al Pantheon.”

Both locals and foreigners crowd under the exposed wooden beams of this tiny, 14-table place with booth seats, big Art Deco windows, and wood-paneled walls to take in perfectly executed renditions of the classics.

“It’s absolutely one of the great go-tos for straight-down-the-middle, fastball-after-fastball of classic Roman fare, especially pasta. I would go for the classics, like carbonara, cacio e pepe, as well as the offal, like the oxtail stew and chicken livers—it’s a great place for quinto quarto fare,” Barrett says, using the Roman term—literally “the fifth quarter”—for offal-based dishes, a tradition rooted in the city’s historic slaughterhouse district.

This is where to go to find perfect examples of the simplest but hardest to make dishes. They can serve as models on which to base your home cooking for, say, cacio e pepe: that creamy, perfectly emulsified sauce of finely grated Pecorino Romano that coats each spaghetti strand with just the right amount of rich, cheesy, peppery flavor.

Trapizzino

Multiple locations

Like the beautiful, brilliant love child of a pizza and a sandwich, the trapizzino has taken Rome by storm and won over even those normally suspicious of culinary innovations. 

“I always find it an immensely satisfying food—you eat one and it’s a snack, you eat two and it’s a meal,” Levi says. “They’re kind of saucy, and when you stuff them into these triangular pizza pockets, the bread soaks up the sauces. The cacciatore’s my favorite because the chicken is braised in this garlic, rosemary, and vinegar combo, and the whole thing just pops in your mouth along with the texture of the beautiful bread with a nice, crispy exterior and soft interior.” 

Barrett, also a fan of the chicken cacciatore, likes to sometimes squeeze into the narrow Trapizzino in Trastevere, where throngs of fans line up for their turn at the counter before taking their trapizzini on the go or to the small, functional tables along the opposite wall or scattered on the sidewalk outside.

“It’s great for people-watching in the evening,” he says. “Trastevere is the hip nightlife neighborhood, and you have a lot of young, beautiful people spilling out onto the streets when the weather’s nice.”

SantoPalato

Piazza Tarquinia, 4 a/b

Just as Pablo Picasso mastered classical painting before moving onto his experimental phases, Rome’s best modern cooks demonstrate a command of the Roman classics while moving the needle of the 21st-century Roman table. Take Sarah Cicolini at SantoPalato, which serves “super hip, elevated trattoria fare” in an elegantly simplified setting of ochre walls and 1920s Italian cubist posters in a working-class district outside the tourist-filled city center.

“She makes one of the best carbonaras in the city and has unimpeachable cred,” Barrett says. “But then she'll take the famous Roman oxtail stew and turn it into fried meatballs dusted with dark chocolate and set it on a peanut-and-mustard purée. She manages to do this in a way that doesn’t outrage Roman traditionalists—she’s really admirably threading the needle, and part of the way she gets to do that is because her carbonara is ridiculous and she’s one hell of a cook.” 

According to Barrett, the perfection of her carbonara begins with the visuals. “It starts with the incredible red-orange color of the yolks, almost fluorescent yellow. It’s cooked until custardy enough to cling to the noodle but not so overdone that it’s congealed. She’s got it dialed in and understands that because Italian food is so simple and uses so few ingredients, the ingredients have to be perfect.”

Miraggio Trastevere

Via della Lungara, 16A

An iconic winter dish (and traditional Christmas Eve first course) in Rome is minestra di broccoli e arzilla, a soup of skate, Romanesco broccoli, and pasta that follows the tradition of la cocina povera, “thrifty dishes made from anything people could get their hands on while being extremely nutritious,” Levi says. 

She recently enjoyed the dish at Miraggio Trastevere, an unassuming place near the Tiber that serves hearty plates on red-checked tablecloths in an unadorned, almost homey yellow-walled setting.

“We had it with a carafe of red wine, and it was aromatic—maybe a little bit of garlic and anchovy paste and tomato,” she says. “And when you eat it, it’s satisfying, chewing on skate and vegetables, with everything soft.”

Retrobottega (& Retrovino)

Via d'Ascanio, 26A

Despite its industrial look—exposed ductwork, stark white walls, and dining rooms split by arches reminiscent of the Ponte Cestio spanning the Tiber—Retrobottega is considered one of the most exciting restaurants in Rome’s contemporary food scene.

“You sit next to strangers but by the end of the night you’re friends,” Barrett says. “Truly elegant, really imaginative, deeply talented, and they go foraging every week. It’s a terrific stop to see the state of the people pushing the envelope.”

He’s a fan of their sweetbread ravioli in a creamy sauce—"absolutely, perfectly tender pillows of meaty goodness in this foamy, frothy, decadent sauce"—and says the risottos are ”creamy and profound.”

Forno Campo de' Fiori

Campo de' Fiori, 22

Though it’s primarily a utilitarian bakery where locals order their daily bread, Forno Campo de' Fiori is also a renowned pizzeria, and is “beloved by locals and tourists alike” despite its perfunctory, matter-of-fact service, long lines, and the fact that there aren’t any tables or seats, just counters to order the pizza in the standard Roman style from along with a long glass case full of the regular bakery items (Barrett especially likes the zucchini bread).

“They make these very long, super thin pizzas that are about a foot and a half by five feet long, take them out with these peels that are five or six feet long, spread them on a big cutting board,” Barrett says. “You order them by weight: Ask for ‘200 grams of rosso,’ and they cut you a square, wrap it in brown paper and hand it to you. It’s glistening with oil, it’s piping hot, and it puts a smile on your face—it’s the ultimate to-go snack.”

Sinosteria

Viale Guglielmo Marconi 586

Rome has always been a city with a complicated relationship to its immigrants, but now the native-born generations of the more recent waves are making their marks in the Roman culinary scene, including the Chinese, who began forming increasingly significant communities there starting in the 1980s.

At Sinosteria, the menu meshes Chinese and traditional Roman cooking sensibilities to form a new genre in a sparingly decorated place that’s the brainchild of a father-son restaurateur duo.

Think kung pao chicken made with friggitelli peppers; coconut-milk risotto with Pettorano broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and crispy leek; or a giant, fried coconut dessert raviolo atop a sweet red wine glaze.

“Sinosteria points the way toward the future and continues to evolve,” Barrett says. “It’s a really bright light to me.”

Bar Gelateria, Alberto Pica

Via della Seggiola, 12, Centro Storico

Unprepossessing but renowned among fans of gelato, Alberto Pica is a beloved place in the Jewish ghetto that churns out exquisite traditional flavors such as pistachio as well as more unusual ones that are equally good, such as a crunchy, cinnamon-y rice pudding and candied rose petals.

Though the interior features the standard format that anyone who has ever stepped foot in a gelateria will instantly recognize—glass freezers with huge trays loaded with pastel-colored treats, each with a classic paddle-scoop stuck in it—you can take your laden cone outside to the small tables on the cobblestone street and gobble them up as passing Romans look on with envy.

All Meals Lead to Rome

Though it’s no longer the center of a continents-spanning empire, Rome has never given up its role as one of the world’s most important cities when it comes to sustaining food traditions, while also forging new gustatory identities in the 21st century. On your next trip to the Eternal City, make sure you take a nibble of the new along with the old, with the help of our Roman experts, then recreate your experiences at home with our recipes.