What is Rome most famous for, besides all of its anique sites and culture? Exactly, the exquisite food you can literally find around every corner. Or. technically, multiple times on every single street.
Being a huge food lover, even the thought of all the authentic Italian pasta, pizza and desserts I was going to try made my mouth water.
Now, we were on the move basically 24/7, so as we got around a lot, we didn't eat at the same restaurant twice. That means we tried a lot, and I mean a whole lot of dishes, and as there always is, not all of them were as excellent as we hoped they would be - we literally went throught the good, the bad, and the ugly (12€ for 1,5 litres of water).
But as the good definitely outweighted the bad, I really wanted to share three of my favorite Roman restaurants with you - recommended by a student, they won't break your bank balance while still being insanely good!
Ristorante da Paolo (Viale Vaticano)
After spending the entire morning and most of our afternoon exploring the Vatican as well as the Vatican Museuums, we were more than just hungry. More like boardering on hangry. Beware, annoying pickpockets or street vendors.
It was really convenient that we spotted this cute little restaurant just across the street from the entrance of the Vatican Museuums - da Paolo's looked inviting and the staff welcomed us rather warmly, so we decided to stay there for dinner.
Compared to Germany, the prices for pasta might make you feel a little dizzy, but compared to the Roman standarts, they were really average and not expensive as you might expect from the restaurant's location.
I had the spaghetti alla pesto and shared a pizza with Nutella for dessert, which were delicious; definitely some of the best dishes I had during my trip. The spaghetti were most definitely worth the eight or nine Euros spent on them, and the portion was so big that even on an empty stomach, I struggled to eat up.
I just checked the restaurant's reviews on Google and was really suprised as the ratings are a lot worse than mine.
My experience with this restaurant was overally really good - okay prices and short wait times, the staff were very friendly to us even though we were very obvious young tourists - not everyone was this welcoming - so I suggest that if you ever happen to visit the Vatican, you should definitely check this restaurant out as not everyone's experiences are as bad as Google tells you.
Antica Domus (Via di S. Giovanni in Laterano)
Another day, another spaghetti alla pesto. I literally have no regrets, I ate as much of it as I could because it's really hard to get hold of such good pesto here.
This is definitely a table with a view, and it didn't show in the prices at all! My spaghetti were even a little cheaper than the ones I had near the Vatican, and I literally ate a few feet from the Colosseum.
The meal quality was good; there might've been a little too much oil involved in my pesto, but it wasn't all too bad.
You could technically sit inside as well, which might've been more comfortable than sitting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. However, we wanted to have the view rather badly, so when we asked our waiter whether we could be moved to another table where we wouldn't have to sit in such an uncomfortable position, he was very attentive and anything but annoyed and still jking around, as were the other staff - the service was amazing!
'Gusto (Piazza Augusto Imperatore)
We spent the first half of our last evening power shopping and trying to hunt down all of the stuff we had previously spotted but didn't have the time to purchase; and as shopping often leaves you rather hungry, we were looking for a place to eat near the famous Via del Corso afterwards.
On our hunt, we found the 'Gusto, which appeared rather fancy, but as it was our last day, we thought we'd induldge a little. And we did. A little more than we originally itended to.
I shared a pizza funghi with a friend of mine; and while it definitely appeared to be smaller to us, as it does in the photo, we were both stuffed after eating our share of the meal - I don't think I would've been able to eat the whole thing in a million year! It was delicious, to say the least; and priced at 9€, sharing it meant that I got away with a rather cheap meal.
Honourable mentions go to the burgers and self-made fries two of my friends had, while they cost almost double the money we spent on our pizza, they were to die for and absolutely huge!
Honourable mentions go to the burgers and self-made fries two of my friends had, while they cost almost double the money we spent on our pizza, they were to die for and absolutely huge!
The only bitter aftertaste about this dining experience is the service we were confronted with.
We were often plainly ignored or made fun of by our waiters, and waited very long for our food to arrive.
We were often plainly ignored or made fun of by our waiters, and waited very long for our food to arrive.
This would've been alright if the restaurant didn't make us pay 11€ for their service. Eleven Euros for a staff whose members mostly looked down on us, maybe because we were a lot younger than their other customers and didn't arrive in fancy clothing.
The only reason we didn't rage quit was the fact that the food was so good - but the restaurant should really work on the way their waters deal with customers.
Do you have a favorite place to eat in Rome, or any other place you've visited?
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