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Restaurants Overview

Since ancient times Rome has been known for grand banquets, and though the days of Caesar's imperial triclinium and the Saturnalia feasts are long past, dining out is still a favorite Roman pastime. But even the city's buongustaii (gourmands) will be the first to tell you that Rome is distinguished more by a positive attitude toward food than by a multitude of world-class restaurants. Here, in this Eternal(ly Culinarily Conservative) City, simple yet joyously traditional cuisine still reigns supreme. Most chefs prefer to follow the mantra of freshness over fuss, simplicity of flavor and preparation over complex cooking methods, and sauces that veil, more than reveal, the flavors of land and sea. In Rome it's always the old reliables that apply, the recipes time-tested by centuries of mammas that still manage to put meat on your bones and smiles on your faces. The payoff, of course, means that you will enjoy a lot of seriously deliciozo dining.

So when Romans keep on ordering the old standbys, it's easy to understand why. And we're talking about some very old standbys: at Al Pompiere, you can dine on a beef-and-citron stew that comes from an ancient recipe of Apicius, probably the first celebrity chef (to Emperor Tiberius) and cookbook author of the Western world. Today, Rome's cooks excel at what has taken hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years to perfect. This is why the basic trattoria menu is more or less the same wherever you go. And it's the reason even top Roman chefs -- Angelo Troiani at Il Convivio and Agata Parisella at Agata e Romeo, for example -- feature their versions of simple classics like pasta all'amatriciana (pasta with a tomato, Roman bacon, chili pepper, and pecorino cheese sauce -- sometimes with onion, although that's an issue of debate). To a great extent, Rome is deliciously still a town where the most frequent response to "what are you in the mood to eat?" is pizza or pasta.

Still, if you're hunting for newer-than-now nouvelle developments, things are slowly changing. Talented young chefs are exploring new culinary frontiers, as witness these tongue-tingling temptations: potato gnocchi with sea urchin sauce, artichoke strudel, and "Nasdaq" tagliolini with lobster (the dollar-green pasta is made with curaçao liqueur). Of course, there's grumbling about the number of chefs who, in a clumsy effort to be "nuovo," simply end up tossing together a laundry-list of ingredients (avocado, canned corn, strawberries, and tuna fish do not a composed salad make). In these cases, collision rather than fusion is the sad result.

But most Romans are not going to allow a lot of newfangled food to get the best of them. When they go out to eat, they expect to "eat local" -- that is, traditional Roman. Even bollito from Bologna or cuttlefish risotto from Venice are regarded as "foreign" food. That noted, Rome is the capital city, and the influx of "immigrants" from other regions of the country is enough to ensure there are more variations on the Italian theme here than you'd find anywhere else in the country. Sicilian, Tuscan, Pugliese, Bolognese, Marchegiano, Sardinian, and northern Italian regional cuisines are all represented. And, reflecting the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the city, you'll find a growing number of good-quality international food outposts here as well, particularly Japanese, Indian, and Ethiopian.

Oddly enough for a nation that prides itself on bella figura ("looking good"), you'll soon lose count of the trattorias and osterias that have walls lined with cheap reproductions of Raphael's cherubic angels or soccer posters. Most Romans don't care about the fanfare of decor. Then again, why should they? After all, this is a city where you can lunch in the gorgeous garden of Da Romolo, the erstwhile Casa di Fornarina, the old haunt of Raphael himself. Or sit outside on a glorious piazza and dine in a "virtual" Baroque painting. Back inside, unfortunately, you may have to overlook garish lighting that illuminates your pallid skin and every wrinkle you never knew you had. Or the lack of music (except for the occasional schmaltzy Mina tune) and harried service. Or the fact that there never seem to be enough menus to go around.

But if you can get past this, if you can look beyond the trappings, as Romans do, you can eat like an emperor -- or at least a well-fed member of the Roman working class -- for very little money. Then, the camaraderie and friendships and conversations that arise are just a bonus; it's not unusual to share wine with neighbors, or have a forkful of pasta offered to you by the older gent sitting on his own at the next table (he probably eats here three times a week). In the end, you'll discover there's immeasurable joy in allowing someone to fare una scarpetta (literally "make a little shoe," meaning to sop up sauce with a piece of bread) in your pasta bowl, if only for the satisfied grin on the person's face while doing it.