10 Best Restaurants in Rome

Armando al Pantheon

Top traditional trattoria next to the Pantheon

The search for the perfect, family- run Roman trattoria ends here. And the fact that Armando is right next to the Pantheon, in the heart of the centro storico, is the icing on the cake. It was opened by Armando Gargioli in 1961, and soon became a magnet for lovers of traditional Roman cooking. Today the trattoria is managed by Armando’s affable sons Claudio and Fabrizio (in the kitchen) (in the kitchen) and Fabrizio (who takes orders), abetted by Claudio’s multi-lingual daughter Fabiana, who is in charge of the orders while also looking after the refreshingly refined (but also well- priced) wine list. There’s just one room beyond the charming marigold stained-glass windows at the entrance – but what a lovely room, an elegant Roman snug lined with the framed paintings and sketches of artistic clients, where local politicians, office workers, artists and clued-in visitors mingle in a conspiracy of pleasure at just being here. The menu includes Roman classics such as spaghetti all’amatriciana or alla gricia (a tomato-less amatriciana), many of them seasonal (spring salad of puntarelle, asparagus chicory, in anchovy sauce), or only available on certain days of the week – if it’s Thursday, it must be coda alla vaccinara (oxtail stew). But the culinary touch is lighter than is usual for Rome; there are several fish dishes, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays, and vegetarians are well catered for.

Per Me

Stellar seafood in Centro Storico

After flying under the radar for many years, today Giulio Terrinoni is one of the brightest celestial objects in the Roman culinary firmament; and in his new centro storicorestaurant he continues to dazzle. Terrinoni opened this intimate 30-cover den just off via Giulia in November 2015 after a nine-year stint at Acquolina Hostaria in the northern suburbs. The ambience is both simple and elegant, rather like Terrinoni’s cuisine: beyond the kitchen-view bar, white walls and dark mahogany tables, chairs and banquettes set the tone, with a single cut flower on each table providing the only splash of colour. Three tables outside in the cobbled lane make for a lovely (and much in demand) warm-weather alternative to the inner sanctum. In these new premises, Terrinoni has opened out, a little, to the meatier traditions of his native Fiuggi, though seafood still takes centre-stage. A roasted cuttlefish starter – served with sea urchins, dipped in bagna cauda sauce placed aside a Jerusalem artichoke – sums up his approach: market-fresh ingredients, strong, individual, honest flavours, combinations that work because they don’t try to submerge the component parts. It can be playful – as in the main-course rana pescatrice (angler-fish), deconstructed into a four-serving ‘culinary day in Rome’ – but mostly it’s just plain good. The affable but knowledgeable service helps, as does the fact that in Giulio Bruni, Per Me has one of Rome’s most promising young sommeliers. Best of all, though, is the fact that you get to choose your own tasting menu from the à-la-carte selection: the four-course route is one of the city’s great gourmet bargains at €85, and although the €55 add-on for four wines by the glass may seem less of a deal, it’s actually well worth the punt given the quality of Bruni’s selections. From Monday to Saturday, a cheaper lunch menu revolves around a choice of tappi (Terrinoni’s Italian homage to Spanish tapas) or gourmet- traditional dishes such as baccalà casserole.

Roscioli

The ultimate Roman deli-restaurant in Campo de’ Fiori

This via dei Giubbonari culinary magnet is basically a food shop with tables. But what a food shop. On the left is a deli counter heaving with artisanal salamis, cheeses and smoked fish, on the right a wine cellar – or part of it, at least – with bottles stacked high on metal shelves. A few two-seaters allow you to admire the mozzarella and mortadella action out front; more tables are crammed into the intimate main space behind, with its exposed brick walls, and a downstairs dining room (not our favourite space, as it feels removed from the Roscioli buzz). Run by brothers Alessandro and Pierluigi Roscioli, this was the first, and is still the best, of a handful of Roman deli-restaurants. Dishes can be as simple as Cantabrian anchovies on buttered toast (is there anything better?); others riff on a key ingredient – thin slices of foie gras, served with sweet-and-sour onions marinated in spice-spiked raspberry vinegar. Then there are the Roman classics just like mamma makes, but made with ultra-refined ingredients – so a carbonara sauce, for example, is prepared with guanciale bacon and pecorino romano cheese, Malaysian black pepper, and eggs supplied by Italian organic egg guru Paolo Parisi. Regulars know that what’s written on the carta is just a suggestion; one good friend of mine makes a point of never, ever ordering anything here exactly as it appears on the menu.

Il Pagliaccio

High-end gourmet in Campo de’ Fiori

Born in France to southern-Italian parents, chef Anthony Genovese has achieved the rare feat (at least in Italy) of making an innovative, experimental urban restaurant a fixed point on the nation’s gourmet map. After a roving apprenticeship that took him from Nice to the UK, Tokyo, Malaysia and Thailand, he opened his own place in the heart of Rome’s centro storico in 2003. It was good back then and has only got better – on the design front too, with the clown-themed original interior giving way to today’s small, sober and informally smart space where vintage floor tiles, brass-hued ventilation ducts and designer paper lanterns provide the perfect setting, warm but with a touch of zen, for serious Genovese cuisine.

The seasonally changing menu has become a little less ‘fusion’ in recent years, but still challenges the orthodoxies of Italian culinary tradition in dishes including amaranth-grain spaghetti with sea urchins and mantis shrimps, a fascinating play of bittersweet flavours. The spectacular desserts, made by pastry chef Thierry Tostivint, deserve a review of their own, and the absorbing wine list, presented by award-winning maître d’ and sommelier Matteo Zappile, has interesting smaller producers mixed in with the big names. At €75, the three-course lunch menu (chosen by the chef, but you can make requests and signal no-nos) is a bargain, especially as it ends up being more like six courses. For the full Pagliaccio experience, opt for one of the eight-course (€150) or 10- course (€155) menus, available both at lunch and dinner.

Da Felice

Real Roman cooking at a traditional Testaccio trattoria

Tourists head for Trastevere, but locals know that Testaccio – the solidly plebeian area of grid-plan streets just south of the Aventine – is the place to come for real Roman cooking. Da Felice has been serving down-home cucina romana for years. The original owner, the late Felice Trivelloni, used to put 'reserved' signs on all the tables so he could turn away anyone he didn't like the look of; to get in back then, it helped to have an introduction from a market trader or a streetsweeper – aristocrats in Felice’s anarchic worldview (one of the few non- locals to get a free pass was actor- director Roberto Benigni). Now run by his son Franco, this corner trattoria has had a makeover (exposed bricks, burnished bar, industrial-chic lights) and gained an impressive wine list. But the menu is just as Roman as ever, with classics including bucatini all'amatriciana(hollow spaghetti in a sauce of tomatoes, onion, pancetta and pecorino cheese) and abbacchio al forno con patate (roast lamb with potatoes). Another highlight is the tonnarelli cacio e pepe – chunky strands of egg-rich pasta mixed with a dressing of crumbly sheep's cheese and black pepper at your table. Finish with tiramisù, served in a glass. Book well ahead: it's so popular they don't need to play around with 'reserved' signs any more.

La Gatta Mangiona

Top-notch pizzeria worth the schlep to Monteverde

Yes, it's a pizzeria – but not any old pizzeria. In suburban Monteverde Nuovo (take the number 8 tram from central Piazza Venezia to the end of the line), the 'Greedy Cat' serves up gourmet versions of Italy’s most famous street food. Extra-virgin olive oil, smoked mackerel and edible flowers are among the ingredients used by owner and self-defined 'pizza engineer' Giancarlo Casa. But it's not just the toppings that ring the changes. Casa uses special flours and longer fermentation times than most pizzerias to ensure that the pizza base is crunchy on the outside, light and airy within. Specialities include the dolceforte with ricotta, pan-tossed courgettes, anchovies, pesto and shavings of tangy pecorino romano cheese. It also does a high-class takes on other Roman pizzeria staples such as bruschettas and supplì (fried-rice croquettes), plus a handful of pasta dishes (check the daily specials), good salads and meaty secondi. Craft beer is the lubricant of choice, but there’s also a decent wine list. The atmosphere is noisy and cheerful, the decor of the sunny trattoria variety, with a feline motif reflecting the restaurant's name. Romans have taken to it, so book before you schlep all the way out here.

Antico Arco

Good-value gourmet in charming Trastevere

Few of the creative Roman restaurants that opened in the 1990s have proved as consistently popular as Antico Arco. On the Gianicolo hill, not far from the lovers’ belvedere in front of the Fontanone fountain that featured in the film La Grande Bellezza, the restaurant has no view and no outside tables, but what's inside more than makes up for that. With its cream-painted brick walls, subtle lighting and sober, high- backed chairs, this relaxed yet serious haven of good food and wine is as warmly intimate and unshowily contemporary as the cooking by current chef, Albanian Fundim Gjepali. It is a slow-food tour of Italy based on obsessively sourced raw materials. Alongside evergreen classics including risotto al Castelmagno con riduzione di Nebbiolo, with its Piedmontese pairing of Castelmagno cheese and Nebbiolo wine, Gjepali has introduced nods at the shepherding and foraging traditions of his homeland – notably in a delicious lamb garnished with Juniper herbs. Desserts such as the caramel coated pears are, alas, irresistible even if you couldn't possibly. Wine is the restaurant's other forte: sommelier Domenico Caliò is constantly on the lookout for little-known gems, which can also be sampled pre- or post-meal in the restaurant’s atrium, a small but cute wine-bar. Book at least three or four days ahead.

Metamorfosi

Top-notch fine dining in Parioli for foodies in the know

It’s way out in the suburbs. There are no outside tables. The decor is beige and brown. One of the dishes is served on a pebble. But keep reading – because the culinary testing ground of talented Colombian chef Roy Salomon Caceres is one of the first Roman addresses visiting gourmets should cross off their list. Located in Parioli, a well-heeled northern district, this hushed dining room espouses a kind of Japanese- influenced oatmeal modernism. Tables are well-spaced, all the better to focus on Caceres’ beautifully presented food, which is ably served and illustrated by friendly maître d’ Alessandro D’Andrea and capable sommelier Paolo Abballe. Brace yourself for foams, for trompe l’oeil games, for desserts that look like they were designed by Frank Gehry, on a menu that grafts Far Eastern and Latin American ingredients and influences onto a Mediterranean base. Just as well that, most of the time, Caceres’ dishes dazzle not only the eye but the palate. Take the ‘Encased risotto’ – a solid brown oval which, on closer inspection, turns out to be a wooden bowl covered by a thin mushroom membrane. Once you break it, the rice, hazlenut and mushroom contents are refreshingly untricky on the tongue, a delicious umami walk in the woods. There are two tasting menus: we strongly recommend the six-course rather than the 10-course version, as a succession of amuse- bouches and pre-desserts will push the plate-count into double figures in any case.

La Pergola

High-end gourmet near the Vatican

It's been more than 20 years since German chef Heinz Beck launched the panoramic restaurant of the Waldorf Rome Cavalieri hotel into the culinary stratosphere – and like a comet, it still outshines the competition from its lofty Monte Mario perch. Rome and the Vatican are laid out diorama-style below, but in the opulent, low-ceilinged dining room, with its Aubusson tapestries, polished boiseries and Art Nouveau lights, the chaotic street theatre of the centro storico is replaced by an impeccably choreographed dance of waiters. Beck's Italo-centric cuisine is technically impeccable, but also light and intelligent, with few of the shock tactics of, say, Heston Blumenthal. The 10-course tasting menu (€260 a head, wine not included), also available in a pared- back seven-course version (€225), is a good introduction; in autumn 2019 it included new entries such as a delicate starter of lightly grilled tuna with caviar and cauliflower, as well as greatest hits such as the carbonara concerto of the chef’s celebrated fagotelli La Pergola pasta parcels (it’s just like Beck to put the sauce inside the pasta, rather than on top). Desserts are spectacular, and the wine list is encyclopaedic – although mark-ups are predictably steep (mineral water is no less of a dilemma: there are 29 types to choose from). It's open only five evenings a week, and has just 55 covers, so book ahead.