Local cuisine for Italian food for family with two kids (8 and 10 yo)?
Also any Michelin Star rated restaurants for couples in Rome? Rick Steves recommends to go out to a local restaurant of quality for an evening splurge or I guess it could also be a lunch. Open to suggestions.
Thank you
Rich
I think I read that RS recommends the Michelin rated not Michelin star restaurants. There’s a big difference in price but the food is normally extremely good in the Michelin rated.
Too many restaurants in Rome to plan that far in advance. I often ask my hotel desk clerk where the good restaurants are and have never been disappointed.
Some of the really good restaurants are in the Trastevere section of town. I prefer the more reasonably priced restaurants around the Pantheon area.
I think just about any casual restaurant, which is most of them, is fine with kids, families eating out is a common sight. I used to say that if you see the terms Osteria or Trattoria to describe a restaurant, that indicates a good basic restaurant, not too formal, and moderately priced, however those terms are used pretty loosely these days, but still an indicator.
I hesitate to give recommendations, due to personal taste and since I have not been back to Rome in a couple years, things change fast. But one example of a historically good place is da Enzo, a trattoria in the Trastevere, often indicated as da Enzo al 29 (29 being the address). They serve solid Roman dishes, simple pastas, artichokes, all done well.
I like to do searches for blogs on Italian and Roman food, if I read the blog for a while, I get a sense of what they like and if it matches my tastes. You can get great recommendations for smaller places, just out of the tourist zones. Just search something like "Rome food blogs". Katie Parla is a long time, well known, blogger https://katieparla.com/city-guides/rome/ and good for a start. But there are dozens, including looking at some YouTube vlogs.
I also just do a lot of walking around, looking at places and the menu, after a bit you get a sense of what the place is like, I rarely eat at a place sight unseen, even if it is on my short list, I want to walk by.
I can't help you with Michelin Starred places, there are close to 20 of them. Most have a style of food I just do not resonate with, I am sure it is great, more "Italian inspired" than Italian. I am sure you can ignore whether a place is Michelin starred or not, look more to the menu, your likes, and budget. There are many classic fine dining restaurants serving great local food.
A Michelin starred place, you would want to reserve long ahead, a very good upper range restaurant, a month or more out. For most of the other places, you can walk up and get a table. At most, if I have my heart set on a place, I go in person and make a reservation the day before, or earlier in the day. Keep in mind, lunches often, for locals, are still a larger meal often, than dinner is, so rarely is a "lunch menu" a lesser thing.
Does location matter? Are your children fussy eaters (we have a grandchild that at 13 went a week in Italy living on cheese pizza and pasta al pomodoro)? Will you eat at Italian dinner hour (8pm or later) or early like many tourists?
My family brought me at the place below (Hostaria da Settimio). It’s in the Monteverde area, so a residential neighborhood but not far from Trastevere. It was only locals and as far as I can tell the staff speaks zero English. They don’t have a menu, they present it to you orally. The food is genuinely Roman and great. We went there late, Romans eat dinner after 9:30pm, but I think they open earlier by 8pm if you can’t wait.
We've taken young children (ages 6 to 9) to Italy three times for a total of about two months. Italian restaurants are remarkably welcoming to kids and accommodating to, uh, choosy eaters. We always look at the menu in advance anyway, either online or posted at the restaurant, since we are making sure that there are vegetarian options for me.
Good idea to figure out where you will be at lunchtime and then find a good restaurant near there. How? Rick Steves has good tips, my husband has an almost-foolproof but complex system, I do pretty darn well just using Google maps and looking at the photos, menu, and recent reviews of each nearby place to eat with a rating above 4.5.
We do almost always make a reservation, even at very very casual places --- can't hurt, might help. We have watched other people being turned away.
This may be an obvious thing to say, but lunches and dinners in Italy can be looooooooooong, which we like but can be tough on kids. Be sure to take quiet things for them to do at the table, ideally not screens which remove a kid so completely from the family conversation. Small colored pencils and various coloring sheets, mazes, dot-to-dot, etc. are nice --- less messy than markers!
You can take children to almost any restaurant in Rome with no problem.
The Michelin guides have so many restaurants for couples, with one or more stars, as well as those listed as "Bib Gourmand," or good value for money, or just plain listed I the guide, with no special designation. You can also look at the Gambrel Rosso guide, and the SlowFood Osterie guide....
Here is Michelin for Rome; I'd concentrate on the one-stars, the bib gourmands, and these that are I the list without any designation:
https://guide.michelin.com/en/it/lazio/roma/restaurants?sort=distance
But I think you are doing yourself a disservice if you stick only to those choices; there are so many great spots that are not in this guide. Just my opinion.....personal taste...
We like Al Moro but its not in this particular guide, although I think Katie Parla once included it in one of her blogs..I will check...yes..here is her take (below) But do not expect, as a first-time visitor, to be pampered.
TRATTORIA MONTI își another reliable place serving food from Le Marche; we used to go fairly often but have not been in years--but it seems too still be strong...lovely, cozy family run place......really goof food. Nothing fancy.
https://katieparla.com/trattoria-al-moro-rome-trevi-fountain/
