Sobremesa Press · Pocket Card
What to Order in Rome: A Pocket Card
One page for the trip: the four Roman pastas and their shapes, the Ghetto and slaughterhouse classics, what's in season, and how to tell a real trattoria from a tourist trap.
★ = don't leave Rome without it. The rest fills out a great few days of eating.
The four Roman pastas
All built from the same tiny pantry: guanciale, pecorino romano, and black pepper. Learn one and you're most of the way to the others.
- Cacio e pepe: pecorino and pepper, creamy with no cream
- Gricia: the parent dish, pecorino plus crisped guanciale
- Amatriciana: gricia plus tomato, on bucatini or rigatoni
- Carbonara: gricia plus egg yolk. No cream, ever
Beyond pasta
The dishes that really tell you where you are come from the Jewish Ghetto and the old Testaccio slaughterhouse.
- Carciofi alla giudia: whole artichoke fried crisp
- Carciofi alla romana: braised with mint and garlic
- Coda alla vaccinara: oxtail braised for hours
- Trippa alla romana: tripe in tomato with pecorino and mint
- Saltimbocca: veal, prosciutto, and sage in butter and wine
- Supplì: fried rice croquette with a molten mozzarella center
- Puntarelle: bitter chicory salad with anchovy and lemon
- Abbacchio: milk-fed spring lamb, roasted or grilled
Pizza & something sweet
Roman pizza is thin and crisp, not the Neapolitan puff. Dessert is short and worth it.
- Pizza al taglio: by the tray, cut with scissors, sold by weight
- Pizza bianca: just dough, oil, and salt, an all-day snack
- Maritozzo: soft bun overfilled with unsweetened cream
- Real gelato sits flat in muted colors, not neon mounds
How to spot the real thing
Knowing the dishes is most of the battle. The rest is where you order them.
- Look for a room full of locals at 1:30 p.m.
- Handwritten menu, no photos of the food, no host outside
- Be suspicious of menus in four languages
- Order the primo: the pasta course is where the kitchen shows off
- Walk two or three streets off the monument
- Eat seasonal: artichokes in spring, lamb around Easter
The four pastas at a glance
| Pasta | Classic shape | What's in it |
|---|---|---|
| Cacio e pepe | Tonnarelli | Pecorino romano, black pepper, pasta water |
| Gricia | Rigatoni / mezze maniche | Guanciale, pecorino, pepper |
| Amatriciana | Bucatini / rigatoni | Guanciale, pecorino, tomato, chili |
| Carbonara | Rigatoni / spaghetti | Guanciale, pecorino, egg yolk, pepper (no cream) |
How to use this: Print it or save it as a PDF for the trip. You don't need all of it in one meal. Order two or three dishes at a place full of locals and let the room do the rest.
A note on authenticity: Recipes and shape pairings vary trattoria to trattoria and family to family. Treat this as a traveler's orientation, not a rulebook. Regional variation is part of the tradition, not a betrayal of it.
For the full article: Best Food in Rome: Eat Like a Roman, Not a Tourist on Sobremesa Press.