Italy means food. Period. So no travel article about Italy is complete without suggesting some place to indulge in what Italy kitchen offers. Italy restaurants and cafes offer you many options, so it is hard to just decide one.
yes dear, you just drink your coffee fast at the bar and leave the place, no waiting!
I usually research before I go to a new place, get advice from my friends who have been there and use offline resources like trip advisor to choose where to eat. But of course when I’m hungry and/or tired or when I see a place I want to try I just dive in. So here are some cafes and restaurants I visited in Italy. Some were good some were meeh, but if you come across just a couple of comments…
First let’s talk about eating culture in Italy. Breakfast is usually a coffee with a croissant or if you have more time maybe a panini. Coffee culture is to randomly enter a place drink coffee on the bar standing and leave in two minutes. Yeap, we saw it all the time. In fact in most places if you sit down you pay a bit more to your coffee and your order. Lunch seems to be skipped or fulfilled with a piece of pizza or panini. But dinner, is where the magic happens. They eat late and they really took their time at the dinner table.
Roma
Pepper and Cheese Spaggethi ,simple but delicious choice
Here is my favorite in Rome, Cantina e Cucina. This lovely place is on a street which is Via del Governo Vecchio in Italian. This street has lots of good restaurants and coffees so you will definitely enjoy a walk through it. We passed the streets once and decided to sit this one which caught our eyes more. Service was full of smiles, decor was cozy and food was really good, especially considering price vs performance. They even serviced us shots two times on the house which made us love them more!
By the way same street supposedly has one of the best ice creams in Rome but frankly I’ve eaten better gelatio even in random places of Rome. Bur their cookie flavor comes with a full cookie on top so there is that and if you want to try they would make a good dessert option after your meal. La Gelateria Frigidarium.
So for a restaurant a bit more classy than average and has an extensive wine menu, we choose to eat our last dinner to eat in Matricianella. You will notice that wine menu is even thicker than the food menu and that is always a good sign! They offer classic main dishes and pasta. They are a bit pricey than your average restaurant but they are still in good price range, you can always choose fool proof options of Pepper and Cheese Spaghetti or Penne Arabiata as a backdoor of the menu. Food was good but wine was even better. With a menu like that even me, self-proclaimed wine lover, was lost since it contained many local regions which I haven’t even heard. But sommelier brought us just the wine we described; easy to drink, not sweet and not young that can accompany our foods for just 16 euro.
Next is a cozy cafe we coincidentally stumbled upon after caught in a sudden rain.
Even its name is cute Café Café. Since we were still in Collosseum area I thought all of our options are most likely tourist traps but we choose this place since it was close to us and seemed to be offering a good selection of teas which was just what we need in the cold weather. Inside is very warmly decorated making you feel instantly cosy and it is a perfect stop for a small coffee and dessert break after your visit to Collosseum .
Hosteria La Vacca M’briaca, this place looked so inviting while we pass by so we decided to dine here. We couldn’t find a good table on our first try but we found an outside table on our second try. (It was close to where we stay). It was just like what we thought, a local good place for a classic Italian dinner. You can tell this by amount of local people dining here. Food and prices were good, if you are near Urbana street you might wanna take a look.
Seriously, does this look like no 1 pizza in Rome?
Pinsera Roma , this was the number one place of restaurants in Rome on Trip Advisor at the time I visited Rome. And it is still one of the most visited places in Rome because its reviews are over 2 thousand. And most of these comments say it is the best pizza in town. So I had to try it myself. Well it was good for the price but it was eat at the counter type of fast food service where you eat while standing. And it certainly wasn’t the best pizza in town. Guess it is one of those “self-fulfilling prophecy of Trip Advisor”, like someplace which is just over average get attention and everybody goes and try that and it gets more attention than it actually deserves. If it wasn’t for the huge expectation of best pizza in town I would have enjoyed it more but it seems like a place to enjoy an afternoon snack and nothing more. They have different choices of pizza and they are small, not like restaurant size pizzas. You don’t need to deliberately search this place out but if you are around you should pop up for a bite. Prices were cheap.
Since it was close to where we stay we tried couple of other places in Urbana street, and another one was Non C’e Trippa Pe Gatti. Again this place has mostly positive comments on the internet and I would say food and prices were ok. But I wasn’t really in sync with the cat pictures on the wall and hearing an English pop song in the background in an Italian restaurant. I guess I expect playing Godfather’s music in the background 🙂 They offer their own daily menus but we preferred ala carte. They charged extra for the bread they brought.
This places made us stop because of beautifully lined up desserts on their glass window. Strabbioni Pizza e Cucina. We tried couple of their small desserts and coffee. I wouldn’t try to find this place a second time but if you came across you can have a quick bite and they sell chocolates for souvenirs.
Dante’s Bar, this is a cafe near to main attractions and with a name like that definitely getting attention. Though it looked and felt like a tourist trap we needed a break in cold weather and they claimed to have best tiramisu in Rome. Well they didn’t but they had a very good strawberry tiramisu. though a bit pricey then your usual cafe being able to seat on one of the main streets certainly deserves it and frankly it was a tolerable tourist trap since we got what we wanted, good dessert and coffee with a busy street view.
Floransa
This was one of my unique dining experience in Florance, Ristorante Le Carceri. Located in a beautiful courtyard with a buzzy atmosphere its main charm was that it was previously a prison. Yes, they turned a real prison into a restaurant so inside decor feels really authentic. Walls are filled with graffiti and writings of former owners and sometimes they are separated with steel bars. Inside was also filled with many locals which we took as a good sign. But since it was a very busy place we could only find a table by promising to leave before 21:30. Except for the fact that the room we sat has also a large table of Italian guests which had 6 children who are really great speakers it was a pleasant evening. I liked the food and wine and atmosphere. But since they are too busy as I saw from the online comments your experience might change greatly so proceed with that in mind 🙂 I think it is a good unique place to eat.
Yellow bar, this place looked like a cozy and nice place. Inside seemed busy enough and menu showed good selections with good price. We ate a good dinner here and atmosphere was just the taste of a good local Italian restaurant with a retro American food chain style which I’m using as a cosy indicator.
Milan, well I totally failed sightseeing in Milan but I was satisfied with my food choices in Milan. But I’m really regretting not taking the name of the place where I ate the most delicious cheese plate and tiramisu of my life. It was a gem find in a remote street on our way to our hotel, I wasn’t expecting anything and obviously with shock I didn’t took any pictures.
Any way but I do remember a seemingly tourist trap but turned out to be good value cafe Bar Ba del Corso. Located on one of the main streets to Duomo, this place is perfect to sit down and watch passerby. Obviously you expect less great food and more expensive price from such place but prices weren’t that high and they brought us small pastries and chips on the house which totally covered any extra euros on the price of our coffees. Seriously they brought about 3 piece per person and chips and coffee was 3 euro. So with that nice surprise I decided to eat a risotto here after all we were in Milan. Well it was mediocre but you know what I say, there is no bad food in Italy just less Parmesan cheese and luckily I think they grow it on trees in Italy because they brought it in portions more than your actual meal here.
Venice
Even though it wasn’t high tourist season we could tell it was a good place because it was busy. Trattoria Alla Ferrata. Seemed like a local place for a good classic Italian dinner and it was. Owner was cheerful and pizza was very good. (not the all vegetable one though)
Bologna
We didn’t had much time to explore but if you are in same position I can suggest you this nice and cozy place we stumbled upon; Bar II Calice. We were looking for a good above standart restaurant but not too pricy around center and we found this place. Entry seems like a cheerful pub but second floor is a decent and cozy restaurant with delicious food. Also they offered traveller menu which included main dish, one drink, coffee and water for 16 euro which was exactly what I was gonna order anyway and if I did it separately I would have paid over 25 euros. I ate Tortellini Bolonese and I absolutely recommend it. Also we ordered dessert as well and I can’t remember the name but the second one in the menu with creme something was the most delicious thing. Also if you happen to visit here on a cold winter night they sell hot wine outside so it is just what you need before you leave this place to wander in cold night streets of Bologna.
