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What to order in Rome.
Rome runs on four pasta sauces, the offal cuts, two unrelated kinds of pizza, a fried course and one artichoke, and each of those has a room that does it properly. This goes dish by dish, says which kitchen owns each one and where the writers disagree, and ends at the wine bars where a Roman evening actually starts.
Roscioli's carbonara, Trecca's rigatoni alla pajata and Mordi e Vai's boiled-beef roll set the range of this guide, from a market counter to a booked table. It is ordered the way a Roman meal is built rather than the way a map is: the four pasta sauces first, because they are what the city argues about; then the offal, which is where the cooking is most itself and where the best new kitchens have done their work; then the two unrelated things both called pizza, one of which is lunch and one of which is dinner; then the fried course that opens a Roman meal; then the Ghetto, which cooks to its own rules four streets from Campo de' Fiori; and last the wine bars that open before the kitchens do.
Start with the four sauces, and pick the room by the sauce.
Carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana and gricia are the same short list of ingredients rearranged, and a Roman kitchen states what it is by how it handles them. The useful move is to decide the dish first and the address second, because the rooms are not interchangeable: the one that wins on carbonara is not the one that wins on cacio e pepe, and the writers who eat here for a living say so out loud. Order one pasta, not three, and leave room for what follows.
- Roscioli Salumeria con CucinaRegola · $$
The carbonara Gambero Rosso placed first of twenty-one in 2020, out of a room that was a provisions shop before it was a kitchen. Nabil Hadj Hassen, who cooked that plate, has since moved to Baccano.
- TreccaAppio-Latino · $$
Second on the same ranking at two thirds of the price, in a room four metro stops out, where the eggs are farmed to order for this one plate.
- Armando al PantheonPigna · $$
Dissapore put the amatriciana first in the city in 2015, printed the objection about the price, then asked why the room still books so far ahead.
- Felice a TestaccioTestaccio · $$
The cacio e pepe is finished at the table in front of you.
- Flavio al Velavevodetto
The cacio e pepe Gabriele Gervasi of Il Ristorante Niko Romito rates above every other in Rome, emulsified with a liberal pour of starchy pasta water, under Monte dei Cocci.
- La QuerciaRegola
Order the cacio e pepe and the amatriciana near Campo de' Fiori, from a menu that names its producers down to an eighteen-month pecorino from Rieti.
- La MatricianaEsquilino
The bucatini all'amatriciana opposite the opera house, with the pecorino brought in a bowl of its own. It shuts on Saturday.
- Cesare al CasalettoMonteverde · $$
Take the gricia here, as Katie Parla says to, at the end of a long tram ride from the centre.
- Trattoria PennestriOstiense · $$
All four sauces open the menu, so one booking settles the argument. Book by phone, the only way in, a week ahead.
Make a walk of it
Do this section cheaply in one day: lunch at Trecca out past Garbatella, then the tram across to Cesare al Casaletto for dinner and the gricia.
The offal is half the menu, and it is the reason to eat here.
The quinto quarto is the fifth quarter, the organ meat and the odd cuts, and in Rome it is not a dare. It is where the cooking is most itself and where the current generation has done its best work. Read a menu for pajata, trippa, coratella and coda and order one of them even if you would not at home, because the rooms below have spent years making the case.
- Checchino dal 1887
The rigatoni con la pajata Gervasi calls the best in Rome, opposite the slaughterhouse gate whose workers were paid partly in the offcuts that became coda alla vaccinara. It shuts on Monday and Tuesday.
- TreccaAppio-Latino · $$
The Infatuation's first pick in Rome, and the reason it gives is the offal rather than the pasta.
- SantoPalatoAppio-Latino · $$
The kitchen built entirely on these cuts, promoted to Gambero Rosso's top rating in 2026.
- RomanèTrionfale · $$
Fried brain and trippa on a Bib Gourmand card behind the Vatican, open straight through from midday, which solves the late lunch.
- L'Osteria della TrippaTrastevere · $$
The sign says tripe and the inspector leads on it, in a Trastevere room that costs a fraction of the starred ones around it.
- Mordi e VaiTestaccio · $
The same cuts inside a roll, from a family of ex-butchers, eaten standing in the Testaccio market before it shuts after lunch.
Make a walk of it
Testaccio at lunchtime: the market box first for a roll, then walk the streets around the main square and book Trecca for that evening.
Pizza is two different foods here and only one of them is dinner.
Pizza al taglio is baked in trays, cut with scissors and sold by weight, and it is lunch. The pizza tonda romana is a thin round on a plate, and it is dinner, because Roman pizzerias do not open at midday. Get that right and you have solved most of the difference between eating well here and queuing for the wrong thing at the wrong hour. Take the tray in daylight and book the round for the evening.
- Bonci PizzariumTrionfale · $
The counter the rest of the trade learned the tray from, and the display is rebuilt daily, so go with no plan and point.
- Forno Campo de' FioriParione · $
The bakery version of the same idea, in the centre, where the thing to take is a strip of pizza bianca folded around mortadella.
- Da RemoTestaccio · $
It serves the plainest example of the Roman round on Testaccio's main square, and it takes no bookings.
- 180g Pizzeria RomanaCentocelle · $$
Sarah Cicolini orders the marinara here, out in Centocelle, and the tables are booked well ahead.
- Seu Pizza IlluminatiTrastevere · $$
The version that argues with the category, joint second in Italy in 2026, and the one to book if you want the pizza to be the event.
- L'ElementareTrastevere · $$
The Trastevere default, with a beer list at the door, for a night when nobody wants to travel across the city.
The fried things come first, and they are a course.
A supplì is rice and ragù around a core of mozzarella, crumbed and fried, and it turns up both as street food at noon and as the opening course at dinner. Around it sit the zucchini flowers with anchovy, the cod, the croquettes and the meatballs of braised veal. Order two or three of them before the pasta.
- SupplizioPonte · $
A chef with his own restaurant opened this second room to sell one fried thing, which is the argument for taking it seriously.
- TrapizzinoTestaccio · $
Stefano Callegari first put a trattoria dish inside a pocket of pizza dough at this counter in 2009.
- Antico Forno RoscioliRegola · $
The bakery half of the family, for a supplì and a pizza bianca off a counter Romans in the centre queue at.
The Ghetto is a separate kitchen and the artichoke is the proof.
Four streets of Sant'Angelo cook to different rules and the results left the quarter long ago. Carciofi alla giudia, the flattened fried artichoke, is now on cards across the city. The sweet baking and the kosher versions of Roman dishes stayed put. The artichoke is a winter dish, and the bakery below sells out, so come early in the day.
- BoccioneSant-Angelo · $
The last kosher bakery on the street, and one tart is the whole reason to stand in the queue before it goes.
- Nonna BettaSant-Angelo · $$
The kosher kitchen on the same street, best read through a short list of four dishes rather than the whole menu.
- Da Enzo al 29Trastevere · $$
Across the bridge in Trastevere, where Gambero Rosso says you are duty-bound to start on the fried artichoke. It takes no bookings, so go early.
Make a walk of it
A morning: the bakery on Via del Portico d'Ottavia first, then over the island footbridge into Trastevere for lunch at the queue.
A Roman evening starts in a wine bar, not at a table.
The enoteche open before the kitchens do. Fill the gap with a glass and something small, the way a working cook here does.
- Enoteca La MescitaGarbatella · $$
The natural wine room in Garbatella where the staff choose the bottle for you, which is the whole recommendation.
- Trimani il Wine BarCastro Pretorio · $$$
A wine bar priced off the shop next door, so the Piedmont reds read cheaper here than anywhere else in the city.
- Faro - Caffè SpecialtySallustiano · $$
The specialty coffee counter to start a day on, and the owner will tell you exactly why it costs what it costs.
- Otaleg (Monteverde)Monteverde · $
The gelato worth the tram to Monteverde, where the counter is rebuilt with the season and nobody should arrive with a flavour in mind.
Jeff's take.
Armando al Pantheon, Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina, SantoPalato and Bonci Pizzarium are on my saved list for Rome. Each one is saved with no note.
How this was written
Composed from the sourced entries. Every room here has its own sourced entry, and nothing on this page adds a fact that is not on one of them. Last read through Sep 2026.