Dining recommendations for Rome?

K

Ken Schramm

Ken Schramm
And Florence. I have a couple of close, wine-loving friends who are headed over in about four weeks. One is also looking to spend a night at a winery that offers dining and overnight accommodations, but I suspect he may try to work that out on his own.

Thanks in advance.

Ken
 
One quirk I noticed about eating in Rome and Florence: in Florence, they really want you to have made a reservation. The Roman restaurateurs were a lot more easy-going about just showing up.
 
It is a very old florentine tradition that you need to reconfirm *twice* in all the restaurants you have a reservation. The first time the day before, the second on the same day. When you are in Florence...

Sorry but I could not resist... Though I have to say that it is more common to ask to reconfirm a reservation to a foreigner...

In Florence I would hit all the Cantinettas in the centre, I do like a lot the one in Piazza dell'Olio but there are several others, just there and ask for the next one. You should expect a glass of Chianti, sometimes non disorderly as you wished, and some crostini with livers.

I suggest to have a look at a well known UK board as there have been a couple of recent threads about Florence and Rome. In Rome I would not miss Antico Forno Roscioli more of a gastronomic tan a proper wine bar... A somewhat respectable Italian blog on food is dissapore.com or.it
 
I've had good luck with the Slow Food guide 'Osterie d'Italia.' It's also available as an app, which is handy. In Italian but pretty easy to decipher.
 
originally posted by Filippo Mattia Ginanni:
It is a very old florentine tradition that you need to reconfirm *twice* in all the restaurants you have a reservation. The first time the day before, the second on the same day. When you are in Florence...

Sorry but I could not resist... Though I have to say that it is more common to ask to reconfirm a reservation to a foreigner...

In Florence I would hit all the Cantinettas in the centre, I do like a lot the one in Piazza dell'Olio but there are several others, just there and ask for the next one. You should expect a glass of Chianti, sometimes non disorderly as you wished, and some crostini with livers.

I suggest to have a look at a well known UK board as there have been a couple of recent threads about Florence and Rome. In Rome I would not miss Antico Forno Roscioli more of a gastronomic tan a proper wine bar... A somewhat respectable Italian blog on food is dissapore.com or.it
Click to expand...

For Rome, do you have any experience with Cesare al Casaletto in Monteverde? It is reputed to be excellent with a very good, maninly "natural" wine list. Nearby is L'Osteria Monteverde, which has also gotten good comments in the blogosphere, but I have been to neither. I do have them on my list to try in November, though.
 
I had a not-fabulous meal at Checchino in May, can't say I recommend it. Plus the winelist was thin on local wines, which was a shame.
 
I was only in Rome for a few days, but I had the sense that the wines of Lazio are not well-regarded at all in Rome. I went to the Enoteca al Parlamento, for example, which has more old vintage Cognac bottlings than they do wines from Lazio; I asked the posh lady there where the local wines were and she acted as if I was asking whether they sold half-pints of Gilbey's.
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
I had a not-fabulous meal at Checchino in May, can't say I recommend it. Plus the winelist was thin on local wines, which was a shame.
Click to expand...

It's been a long time, but they used to have a great wine list with old Italian wines, specially interesting in the gattinara / spanna department...plus a very interesting offal dishes...hence my recommendation
 
It seemed to me a that they were coasting, to some extent, although some of the dishes were very good. Full of tourists, but I suppose since the whole city was full of tourists...
 
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