iapetus

La Cannoleria Siciliana really worked out well! It's a small, modest place that was fairly busy when I walked in. Still I had no problem getting service. (I did have to tell the cashier that I had purchased 12, not 10, cannoli, but ... no matter.) I picked up a dozen mini-cannoli with a variety of toppings (pistachios, chocolate, almonds ...). They tasted great to me, though it has been a lifetime since I regularly enjoyed cannoli (they're very hard to find in California ... and usually are only so-so when you do). So I might not make the best cannoli judge.

Everyone for whom I bought them happened to be around. As to whether or not they appreciated it, I'm fairly certain that they did. While my colleagues weren't effusive with thanks, I think they enjoyed them. But, really, the point was just to have done something nice for everyone else. I'm pretty sure that I'll go back the next time I come here for business.

But, if there were one thing I'd do differently, it might be to exit the station differently. Crossing from the center of the piazza across the traffic circle was a little (albeit not terribly) harrowing! I might cross the circle using the one of the exit tunnels instead next time.

Sciamano

Nice to hear La Cannoleria worked fine ^

mkjr

I'll also give a shout out to retro-bottega.

We ate early with our disabled daughter and I'm not one to get all worked up about food given the fat cat lifestyle that sometimes labels me but man o man was this fantastic. Sure, not Roman per se but wow did they show some great innovative stuff based on local seasonal ingredients.

What is sad that less than 100m away people are eating meh, well very meh stuff for the same or more.

iapetus

That place is around the block from my preferred hotel. I walk past there frequently when I'm in Rome. I'll have to check it out! ^

Perche

According to Elizabeth Minchilli, you found a great spot at Retrobottega.
http://www.elizabethminchilliinrome....obottega-rome/

I'll have to try it.

rickg523

I'm staying right around the corner on della Scrofa first week in June.
Me too.

amyers

Not sure if this is a 'tourist trap' type place, but I didn't care because I enjoyed the food. There's a place called Mimi e' Coco near Piazza Navona. The carbonara is excellent.

Joanna2360

Just to keep this excellent thread going, and to offer a single good recommendation: La Pollarola near Campo de' Fiori. I've been going there for 15 years and have never had a bad or even ordinary meal. If you go early and during high season, you'll be eating with Americans and Germans and may have the impression that you are in a tourist place. You are not. If you go at 9:00 pm or later, you'll be eating with Italians. It is a family-run restaurant, very Roman, and in business since 1936. Good fish, good pasta, good everything. However, you might want to avoid the fried appetizer, only because it is too heavy for someone who might want 2 more courses. I especially like the house cannelloni, or any of the artichokes in season, or the rombo (white fish similar to flounder or fluke), or the skate soup, or the roast suckling pig. Whether you are a tourist coming for just one meal or a regular, you will be treated with courtesy, and you will get good value for the price, which is not extravagant. The house cannelloni remains a 9 Euro, although many of the other primo/pasta dishes are 10 or 12 Euro. As a reminder: the fish is priced by the atto (100 gram units), as it is in many other Roman restaurants, and most fish will be 300 grams or more.

mkjr

Thanks. Pretty much sums up my views.

Out of all the places we went to in Italy, http://www.ilbacaroroma.com/ also in Rome, http://www.cortescontavenezia.com/ in Venice, http://www.fishinglab.it/ in Florence, although all of these were great meals, Retrobottega was the best and frankly, has to be one of my top ten meals...period!!

I will also note that Bonci Pizzarium is darn good for pizza and if you don't want to shelp it to it's location, I can confirm that what they serve at the Mercato Centrale is pretty much the same quality.

Mercato Centrale at Termini is also a very nice place and decent option for dinner.

I would also add that Il Panino Ingegnoso, a place serving fantastic sandwiches Piazza di Pietra, 35,, about 5 minutes from the pantheon in front of the Tempio di Adriano is amazingly good!!

rickg523

I really liked Il Bacaro.
So if Retrobottega shades it, sounds like a meal to look forward to. Maybe "meals" since I'll be staying less than half a block away.
Also going to look for the sandwich shop on Pza. di Pietra.
Thanks.

PWMTrav

I actually had a good pizza (Napoletana) at one of the places right on Piazza Navona. The is the definition of tourist trap, too. I'm going to throw the name out there with a couple of caveats. First, the place gets torn to shreds on every review site, and it's almost entirely justified. Most importantly, ask to sit in the back, inside near the pizza oven, and do not order anything except for pizza. It is literally the only thing they do well. It is still a tourist trap - prices are very high, they encourage tipping, and did I mention the only item they execute well is pizza? And the only part of the place where you might get reasonable service is back in that area. Now, if you've read this far, the place is called Caffe Domiziano. You will get dinged ~12 euro for a pizza margherita, but if you need this place, there it is.

I'm only putting this out there if you're stuck in a touristy area and need something to eat. There are better options in the piazza if you want anything except pizza. However, when you travel with little kids, you tend to want these places in your back pocket.

mkjr

IL Bacaro was great. My rabbit was outstanding. And daughters tenderloin was so nice. But yes, Retrobottega was better. At least for me and all were really good so it's likely shades of preference.

Perche

Via della Scrofa is an interesting place to stay. I stayed at a B&B there for a few weeks in January. You should report back to us your thoughts on fettuccini alfredo. It's not a very long street, so I'm sure that when you walk out the door you are going to see Alfredo's. As in Fettucini Alfredo.

Fettucicni Alfredo is one of the most popular dishes in Italian American restaurants in the USA. However, it doesn't exist in Italy, and Italians have never heard of it. Except on Via della Scrofa, where you will be staying. I think that most people know this story.

Legend has it that Alfredo's wife had hyperemesis gravidosum. That's the same thing that Princess Kate Middleton had. Some women, when they are pregnant, get very nauseated. Alfredo's wife had that, in the little restaurant he owned right near the Fountain of Trevi in the early 1910's. Two very famous American movie stars walked into the restaurant. This was in the era of silent films; Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford.

They saw Alfredo bringing out a dish for someone who was obviously his wife. They decided, "that must be the best thing in the house, because that's what he's serving to his wife." They ordered what she was having. Alfredo said, "No, you can't really mean that." But they insisted, and so he gave it to them. The restaurant got demolished, and moved to Via della Scrofa.

One time I was in Sicily, and I developed a really sick stomach. No one with a sick stomach, like Alfredo's wife, can handle a heavy sauce, so you ask for a, "Pasta in bianco." It's like asking for Menudo if you are Mexican, or eggs and potatoes if you need to settle your stomach. Go to any restaurant in Italy and ask for "pasta in bianco," and they will know that you are just trying to settle an upset stomach.

Fairbanks insisted, "No, I want what she's having because if that's what you are giving to your wife, it must be your best dish!" Alfredo told him that it cannot be sold. It was just fettuccini, with a pat of butter. It was white, that's why he referred to is as pasta in bianco. He grated a little it of parmigiano-reggiano on top for flavor, and that was it. It could not be sold in a restaurant, because everyone has pasta in their cupboard, everyone has butter, and everyone has cheese. It would be like going to a restaurant and ordering two slices of toast.

Alfredo was incredulous because the next day Fairbanks and Pickford came back to the restaurant and said that was the best Italian food they every had, and they gifted him with a golden fork and spoon. Pasta in bianco, meaning pasta without sauce, just butter.

The two movie stars went back to Hollywood and talked about this incredible meal they had in Rome, cooked at Alfredo's. They told everyone that if you ever go to Rome, you must stop there and eat Alfredo's fettuccini. It was nothing more than pasta, with a pat of butter, and a few grates of Parmigiano on top to give the flavorless dish some flavor. For pregnant women, throwing up.

So many movies were being made in Rome, and everyone, on the basis of Fairbank's recommendation, would go to Alfredo's, at Via della Scrofa. He took pictures of them all, and started hanging them on the walls. He thought that Americans were all nuts, to pay a double price for pasta with just a pat of butter, which is all that his wife could keep down. No one would go to a restaurant and ask for pasta, a teaspoon of butter, and a few grates of cheese. You can make that in your own house for 20 cents. But the movie stars kept coming, and finding it delicious.

Alfredo got greedy. He decided that if Americans are this dumb about food, that they would pay a premium price to just have pasta with a pat of butter on top, he should move to the USA and start restaurants there, because he would make a killing. So he sold the restaurant to his lead waiter.

It starts getting murky there, about whether Alfredo opened up the first of his planned new franchise of pasta, with a pat of butter on top, in New York City, or in Hollywood. Whatever, nobody would eat it. The famous, "fettuccini Alfredo" tasted just like pasta, with a pat of butter, for a woman with a sick stomach. The butter in Italy is not the same as the butter here. The butter in Italy was something very different from Margarine. There was no true, authenticated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. The dish couldn't be replicated in the USA. What was a smash to American tourists in Rome was utterly tasteless in Hollywood.

Little by little, Alfredo realized that Americans love cream. He started adding more and more cream to the recipe. There are no recipes that I know of in Italy that are called, "creamy sauce," "creamy marinara," etc. But Alfredo realized that the more cream he added, the more Americans ate the pasta.

Alfredo got disgusted with this, and went back to Italy, and told his head waiter, whom he had sold the restaurant to, to give it back to him. The head waiter said no, "look at all of the more pictures of movie stars I brought in on the wall, including Elizabeth Taylor."

Alfredo, angered by this, wanted his restaurant back, and he sued. Italian courts being what they are, decided on a solution. The head waiter that Alfredo sold his restaurant to, can still advertise, "Fettuccini Alfredo Invented Here." Alfredo was allowed to open up a restaurant about 3 blocks away, and call it, "Vero Alfredo Fetttuccini," or " True Fettucini Alfredo. These are the only two restaurants in Italy that serve it. Nobody else, even in Rome, ever heard of it.

If you are staying on della Scrofa, you will be in the middle of that. I didn't eat at either place. I did something stupid, but typical of me. I stood outside of both of the restaurants and asked questions. I stopped anyone who looked like a local. I asked simple questions, "do you eat fettuccine alfredo?" Nobody had ever heard of it. A few people that I stopped responded, "fettuccini tripio burro!" As in fettuccine where you put three times the normal amount of butter on it, to tee it up to the tourists' taste?

I must have stopped 20 random Romans just walking their dogs in front of the two places who claim to be the founders of fettuccine alfredo. They all said that they would never pay 25 euros to have pasta with three pats of butter, plus cream, even if they had an upset stomach.

I think it's pretty safe to say that fettuccini alfredo is not italian food. There are restaurants on each side of the restaurants that claim to be the original Alfredo, and both are always packed. It's like being at a movie preview. Vero Alfredo, right next door, in the last picture, is always empty. The light bulbs on other Alfredo, half are burnt out. However, some people who's opinion I respect, think otherwise. Here is a link to another opinion.

http://www.elizabethminchilliinrome....alfredo-video/

bigguyinpasadena

When I was a young adult I was very poor. BUT! I did have a pasta maker! I would make fresh fettuccine, dress it with butter and freshly grated granna ( i know it was not real Parmesan Reggiano as this would have been in the early 80's and I definitively could not have afforded real Parmesan back then!) and a bit of freshly ground pepper. This fed me very well for very little money.

PWMTrav

That is very much Italian. It's good for a drunk meal, hangover, quick dinner, and especially, little kids. You'll never see it on a menu, but if you ask for pasta al burro, this is what you'll get. My 5 year old still loves it.