4 Mistakes to Avoid When Eating in Rome

Our first meal in Rome was the evening we landed. We needed to go to the Vatican to pick up our Rome Turbopass (more on that in another post), and we were soon looking for something to eat. We were still in our plane clothes, so we didn’t want anything too fancy, but we were pretty much running blind on what was culturally normal, and what we should even be looking for, because we had spent all of four hours in Rome so far. When we finally settled on a place, we learned some valuable lessons for the rest of our time in Rome.

When you’re leaving or entering the Vatican, it is typical to walk down a particular street, that enters the very front of the city, and has a perfect view of St. Peter’s Basilica. There are a few restaurants and shops along this street, and since our only other destination that evening was Castel Sant’Angelo, it made sense, geographically, to stop along here for food.

Mistake #1: Don’t eat this close to a tourist attraction.

I know it’s odd to think of an entire city-state and center of a religion as a tourist attraction, but if we’re being real, Vatican City is always full of tourists. So it only makes sense that you’d find tourist traps there. I don’t think it necessarily means that all restaurants close to a major tourist attraction are inauthentic (although this one seemed to be), but it definitely will cost more. This was our most expensive meal of the trip, and it wasn’t the best. Not even close. And since it was our first meal in Italy, I didn’t know what was normal or what should have raised our eyebrows. For example, the menu didn’t have prices listed on it. At the time, I didn’t think too much of it, but every place we ate for the rest of the trip had prices clearly marked on the menus.

Mistake #2: Don’t eat at a place with a “town crier.”

Again, for all we knew, it was totally normal in Italy for a waiter or host to bombard you on the street and tell you all about their great “spaghetti and meatballs.” This guy even pulled a chair out for us in the outdoor seating area when we stopped to look at the menu. I was starving, so his tactics worked on me, and we sat down to eat. Later on our trip, I noticed that these “town criers” are only found around restaurants near a major tourist attraction. Anywhere else where we would stop to look at their posted menu, no one bombarded us. If there was a hostess nearby, she might say “hello,” but she definitely didn’t try to persuade us to choose her restaurant. And our server’s pushy persona didn’t stop once we sat down. When we finished the meal and paid, he said “tip cash,” which would have been obvious, since he had already told us they don’t accept card, except that gratuity had already been figured into our bill. So he was essentially just saying it to make sure we tipped him even more. And then he stood there at our table until we did. If it hadn’t been the first meal of the trip, I might have said something, but I just felt too intimidated by not knowing anything about the city or the culture. None of the other places where we ate following that night had gratuity already figured into the bill, and none of our other servers said anything to us about tipping. It was similar to the culture here in the U.S. in that regard -- it’s just implied that a tip is expected for adequate service.

Mistake #3: Restaurants serving spaghetti and meatballs are not authentic.

It’s not even an Italian dish. We even found out that putting meatballs in spaghetti is borderline offensive to Italian chefs. The dish was invented in Brooklyn in the twentieth century, and isn’t served at any authentic Italian restaurant. Meatballs are a thing in Italy, and Spaghetti is a thing, but not together.

Mistake #4: The good places don’t even open until at least 7 p.m.

We knew going into this trip that it’s not the culture in Italy, and a lot of places in Europe, to eat as early as Americans sometimes do. It’s not normal for me to eat at 5:30, even here in the States, but when it starts to get dark around that time (we were visiting in November), it feels like it’s time to wind the night down and head back to the hotel. And since our hotel was nowhere near city center and about a 10-15 minute walk to the nearest Metro stop, it felt like when we were in for the night, that should be the end of the night. Even after we had learned from our mistakes at this tourist restaurant outside the Vatican, we still found ourselves searching for food earlier than we should have on other nights. Just take my word for it and wait for the places that don’t open until late. They’re so much better.

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From the mistakes I made that first night in Rome, I learned that eating should be a destination of its own. Of course I knew going into this trip that I wanted to eat at the restaurants and experience the authentic cuisine, but I didn’t put the advance thought into it that I did with the sights we saw during the day. The best meal I had was at a restaurant that came recommended by someone we met in Rome. So, don’t do what I did and try to find a place for dinner at the end of the day when you’re tired and hungry. Make a plan in advance, and try to get some recommendations from people who know the city well. Here are a few places I recommend:

Gusto. This was my favorite meal of the trip. It’s near the Piazza del Popolo. Order their Carbonara. I’ve never had Carbonara here in the States, but I’ve heard the authentic Italian dish is a bit different from that. I knew I wanted to try this dish when I found out it was not only authentic Italian, but a Roman specialty. It did not disappoint.

The lighting in that photo is super weird, I know, but the food was too delicious for me not to include the photo. The red is just coming from the heaters!

Trattoria Vecchia Roma. This restaurant is on Via Ferruccio not far from the Metro. It’s one of those places that doesn’t open until 7 p.m., and it was well worth it. Since we arrived pretty much right at 7, we were able to be seated right away, but the place got super popular as it got later. By the time we left, there was a line of people waiting for a table. One thing I liked about this place was that it served its house wine by the .5 liter, rather than by the glass. That was the only place where we ate that sold their wine that way. The ambiance of the restaurant was also really cool. It was halfway underground, so you had to take a few steps down to even walk in the door, and the interior was decorated with brick. And of course the food was amazing. I ordered the cacio e pepe, and it was delicious. By the time our meal arrived, our tiny table was filled in a way that just made me think, this is what a meal should look like.

Don Nino. I kind of broke my “don’t eat close to a major tourist attraction” rule with this one, but it was so good, it makes me think maybe that rule is a bit looser when it comes to Gelato shops. I broke the rule because we had been looking for cannolis for a while, and this place smacked us in the face with a big cannoli poster as soon as we turned around to leave the Trevi Fountain. I think this was primarily a Gelato shop, but we had just had Gelato literally minutes before we found this place, so we were just there for the cannolis. And let me tell you: Life. Changing. I’m in no way a cannoli expert, but that was the best cannoli I’ve ever had in my life. This is the only place in my top three recommendations that we just happened upon. The previous two came recommended to us.