What to eat in Rome
Rome eats offal and pasta dressed with cured pork fat and sheep's cheese: carbonara, gricia, amatriciana and cacio e pepe are four variations on the same four ingredients. Around them sit artichokes, milk-fed lamb, tripe, and the Jewish-Roman cooking of the old Ghetto.
Roman food comes from two trades: shepherding and butchery. The countryside around the city, plus centuries of seasonal sheep migration down from the Abruzzo mountains, gave Rome pecorino, ricotta and lamb. The slaughterhouse of Testaccio, which opened in 1891 and closed in 1975, gave it the quinto quarto: the 'fifth quarter', meaning oxtail, tripe, intestines, sweetbreads and brain, paid to workers as part of their wages and cooked slowly at home. Despite the popes and the cardinals, this was never a courtly cuisine.
Visitors arriving from Bologna or Naples are usually surprised by how little tomato there is. Three of the four landmark pastas are white, built on an emulsion of starchy cooking water, grated cheese and pork fat. There is almost no filled pasta, almost no butter, and no minced-meat ragù. What there is instead: black pepper treated as an ingredient rather than a seasoning, and pecorino romano, sharp, salty and uncompromising, used where most of Italy would reach for parmesan.
And then there is the Ghetto. Rome's Jewish community is the oldest in western Europe, older than the Empire, and five centuries of enclosure after 1555 produced a distinct kitchen: frying in oil rather than lard, vegetables at the centre of the plate, the artichoke pressed open like a flower and fried twice. It is the one Roman cuisine other Italian cities never tried to copy, and it still lives in a few hundred metres around Via del Portico d'Ottavia.
The dishes of Rome
Carbonara
Cured pork jowl rendered crisp, egg yolks, pecorino romano and black pepper. No cream, no garlic, no onion, and no bacon: the fat has to be guanciale or the dish tastes of smoke. The pan comes off the heat before the eggs go in, otherwise they scramble. It is the youngest of the Roman classics: the first printed recipe, in 1954, still called for gruyère.
Cacio e pepe
Pecorino romano, toasted black pepper and pasta water, whisked into a cream. Three ingredients and nowhere to hide: the sauce splits easily, which is why it is the dish Romans use to judge a kitchen. It began as shepherds' food, since cheese, pepper and dried pasta all travel well. Often served with tonnarelli, a thicker square-cut spaghetti.
Bucatini all'amatriciana
Guanciale, tomato, pecorino and chilli. The dish takes its name from Amatrice, a mountain town that only became part of Lazio in 1927. Before that it was Abruzzo, which is why Romans think of it as highland cooking. Bucatini are thick spaghetti with a hole down the middle; they hold the sauce better and they will splash your shirt.
Gricia
Amatriciana without the tomato, and almost certainly the older dish: guanciale, pecorino, pepper, pasta. The name may come from Grisciano, a hamlet near Accumoli, or from the grici, Swiss-Italian grocers who kept shops in Rome. Order it if you want to know whether a trattoria can actually cook.
Artichokes, two ways
Carciofo alla giudia is the Jewish-Roman version: the artichoke is flattened open, deep-fried twice, and arrives with outer leaves like crisps and a soft heart. Carciofo alla romana is the opposite: braised stem-up with garlic and wild mint, soft and green throughout. Both use the round, spineless romanesco variety, in season roughly February to April.
Offal: oxtail, tripe, pajata
Coda alla vaccinara is oxtail braised for hours with celery and tomato; older versions finish with pine nuts, raisins and a little bitter cocoa. Rigatoni con la pajata uses the intestine of a milk-fed calf, which turns into a creamy sauce as it cooks. Squeamish diners should know this before ordering. Trippa alla romana is tripe in tomato with wild mint and a heavy snowfall of pecorino.
Puntarelle
Winter chicory shoots, sliced into strips, curled in iced water and dressed with anchovy, garlic and vinegar crushed in a mortar. Bitter, crunchy, and served as a starter from November to March. If you see them on a menu in July, the kitchen is not paying attention.
Abbacchio
Milk-fed lamb, under eight kilos, from the flocks of the Roman countryside and the Sabine hills; it carries IGP protected status. Scottadito means 'finger-burner': grilled chops eaten with your hands while still too hot. Roasted with potatoes and rosemary, it is the Easter Sunday dish.
Supplì
A fried rice croquette with a mozzarella centre that stretches into a thread when you break it open, hence the old name, supplì al telefono. It is not an arancino: smaller, oval, the rice already dressed with meat ragù and no saffron. Eat it standing up, usually while waiting for a pizza.
Pizza bianca with mortadella
Roman pizza bianca is a thick, blistered flatbread brushed with olive oil and coarse salt, sold by weight and cut with scissors. Split and stuffed with thin-sliced mortadella, it is the city's default afternoon snack; the queue outside Forno Campo de' Fiori is proof. In September, filled with fresh figs, it becomes something worth planning a day around.
Local products
The ingredient that holds the Roman table together is pecorino romano DOP, a hard sheep's cheese salted almost aggressively, made under its protected designation in Lazio, Sardinia and the province of Grosseto. Alongside it sits ricotta romana DOP, sweet and grainy, which goes into tarts and into ricotta supplì. From the coastal market gardens comes carciofo romanesco del Lazio IGP (the round, spineless artichoke grown around Ladispoli, Cerveteri, Sezze and Velletri) plus puntarelle, wild chicories and courgettes sold with the flower still attached.
On meat and charcuterie, Lazio plays to its strengths: IGP milk-fed lamb, porchetta di Ariccia IGP (a whole boned pig, seasoned with pepper, garlic and rosemary and slow-roasted), and the guanciale from the Amatrice area that carries three of the four classic pastas. Bread means pane di Genzano IGP, wood-fired with a bran-dusted crust. For wine, the city drinks white from the Castelli Romani hills (Frascati Superiore DOCG above all) and, for red, Cesanese del Piglio, the region's only DOCG red and a good match for oxtail.
Sweets and pastries
The everyday Roman pastry is the maritozzo: a soft sweet bun split open and overfilled with whipped cream, eaten for breakfast standing at the bar. It began as a Lenten bun with raisins and pine nuts, and the name is said to come from the gift a man gave his fiancée: his role as marito, husband-to-be. At Regoli, near Piazza Vittorio since 1916, the queue starts around seven in the morning. The rest of the year runs on a calendar: fried bignè di San Giuseppe on 19 March, frappe and castagnole at Carnival, and pangiallo at Christmas, a dense brick of nuts, honey and candied fruit sold by the slice.
In the Ghetto, the defining sweet is the ricotta and sour cherry tart at Pasticceria Boccione on Via del Portico d'Ottavia: no sign above the door, kosher oven, top always slightly scorched, which is the house signature rather than a mistake. In summer the dessert turns liquid: grattachecca, hand-shaved ice with fruit syrup, from the kiosks along the Tiber, including Sora Mirella by the Isola Tiberina, open since 1915.
Where to try them
Start at the Testaccio market, rehoused in 2012 on Via Beniamino Franklin: real greengrocers, and at the Mordi e Vai stall a braised beef sandwich that has become a pilgrimage. Mercato Trionfale in Prati is one of Italy's largest covered markets and serves residents rather than visitors. Nuovo Mercato Esquilino, behind Termini station, is where you buy everything Roman cooking does not use. Piazza San Cosimato in Trastevere still works in the mornings.
Shops worth the detour: Volpetti on Via Marmorata for cheese and salumi; Norcineria Viola in Campo de' Fiori, trading since 1890; Forno Campo de' Fiori and Antico Forno Roscioli for pizza bianca and bread; Er Buchetto on Via del Viminale for a porchetta sandwich; Supplizio on Via dei Banchi Vecchi, and Bonci's Pizzarium near the Vatican Museums.
To sit down: Checchino dal 1887, cut into the Monte dei Cocci opposite the old slaughterhouse, is the offal temple; Felice a Testaccio made its name on cacio e pepe finished at the table; Da Enzo al 29 in Trastevere and Armando al Pantheon hold the line in two heavily touristed areas. Both need booking well ahead. The neighbourhoods where Romans actually eat are Testaccio, Garbatella, San Lorenzo, Pigneto and, for newer kitchens, Centocelle.
When to go
February to April is artichoke season, and Ladispoli, half an hour north on the train, has run a romanesco artichoke festival every April for over seventy years. Easter means roast lamb. On 1 May Romans eat fresh broad beans with pecorino outdoors, a ritual that has survived everything. November to March is the season for puntarelle, bitter chicories and tripe.
Summer moves towards frying and cold things: courgette flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy, grattachecca at riverside kiosks, dinner served late. Romans rarely sit down before 8.30pm, and 9.30pm is normal. The first weekend of September brings the porchetta festival at Ariccia in the Castelli hills; the first Sunday of October, Marino runs a grape festival where the town fountains famously flow with wine. Note that many family-run trattorias close for two or three weeks in August.
Food tours and classes here
Frequently asked questions
What food is Rome famous for?
Four pasta dishes (carbonara, cacio e pepe, gricia and amatriciana) plus offal cooking (oxtail, tripe, calf intestine), artichokes prepared two different ways, milk-fed lamb, and the Jewish-Roman dishes of the old Ghetto. Pecorino romano and guanciale are the two ingredients behind most of it.
What is the difference between carbonara, gricia, amatriciana and cacio e pepe?
They are four steps on one ladder. Cacio e pepe is pecorino and pepper. Add guanciale and you have gricia. Add tomato to gricia and you have amatriciana. Add egg yolk to gricia instead and you have carbonara. None of them contains cream in the traditional version.
How do I avoid tourist-trap restaurants in Rome?
Skip anywhere with photographs of the food outside, a menu translated into six languages, or someone standing at the door inviting you in. Look for a short handwritten menu, a dining room with Italian voices in it, and dinner service that does not begin before 7.30pm. Booking a well-regarded trattoria two or three days ahead solves most of the problem.
How much does dinner cost in Rome?
In a neighbourhood trattoria a pasta course runs 10-14 euros and a main 14-20, so 30-40 euros a head with wine is normal. A cover charge (coperto) of 1.50 to 3 euros per person is standard and must be printed on the menu. Tipping is not expected; rounding up is plenty.