What to eat in Rome in 2026: typical dishes and where to try them

The four Roman pastas

Romans often talk about their pastas as a single family. All of them are built on pecorino romano, a sheep's milk cheese with a protected designation of origin (DOP), and none contains cream or butter. They make the most sense in this order:

• Cacio e pepe: grated pecorino, black pepper and a little starchy pasta water, stirred until they form a smooth sauce. It is the simplest of the four and the hardest to get right.
• Gricia: cacio e pepe with added guanciale, salted and cured pork cheek, fried until crisp.
• Amatriciana: gricia with tomato. It comes from Amatrice, in the mountains of northern Lazio, and its traditional recipe has been protected in Europe since 2020: guanciale, pecorino and tomato, with no onion and no pork belly lardons.
• Carbonara: gricia with eggs, or yolks only, bound off the heat with the pecorino and pepper. A Roman carbonara contains neither cream nor smoked bacon. In Italy, 6 April is even "Carbonara Day".

Pasta shapes vary from one trattoria to the next: spaghetti, tonnarelli (square spaghetti), rigatoni, mezze maniche or bucatini, the last being the classic choice for amatriciana. In a neighbourhood trattoria, a plate of cacio e pepe usually costs €9 to €15.

Meat dishes and the quinto quarto

The quinto quarto, the "fifth quarter", refers to everything left of an animal once the four quarters of prime meat have been sold: tail, tripe, offal. In Testaccio, workers at the municipal slaughterhouse, built in the late 19th century and closed in 1975, received part of their wages in cuts like these, which they had cooked in the local osterie. Those recipes have become classics:

• Coda alla vaccinara: oxtail slowly braised in a tomato and celery sauce.
• Trippa alla romana: tripe cooked in tomato, served with mentuccia, the wild Roman mint, and pecorino.
• Rigatoni con la pajata: pasta in a tomato sauce with milk-fed veal intestine. Banned in 2001 during the mad cow crisis, the original recipe has been allowed again since 2015.

If offal puts you off, Roman menus also feature abbacchio, the milk-fed lamb of Lazio (protected by a geographical indication), grilled as "a scottadito" chops or roasted in the oven with potatoes, and saltimbocca alla romana, a thin veal escalope topped with cured ham and sage, cooked in white wine.

Seasonal vegetables: artichokes and puntarelle

Market gardeners in Lazio supply the vegetables that go with every meal, and many dishes are only found in season.

• Carciofo romanesco: a large, round, thornless artichoke, protected by a geographical indication. The harvest runs from January to May, at its best from March to late April. It is eaten alla romana, gently cooked in oil and water with garlic, mint and parsley, or alla giudia, fried twice in the Roman Jewish style, as described in our guide to the Jewish ghetto of Rome.
• Puntarelle: chicory shoots cut into thin strips and served raw with a dressing of anchovy, garlic, oil and vinegar, from late autumn to spring.
• Cicoria ripassata: wild chicory, blanched and then sautéed with garlic and chilli.
• Fiori di zucca: courgette flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy, then fried, mostly in spring and summer.
• Fave e pecorino: on 1 May, Romans picnic in the countryside with raw broad beans and pecorino.

Street food: supplì, pizza and trapizzino

Rome is also eaten standing up, at the counter of a fry shop or a bakery.

• Supplì: a croquette of rice cooked in a meat and tomato sauce, with a mozzarella centre, breaded and fried. It is called "supplì al telefono" because the cheese stretches into a string, like a telephone cord, when you pull it in half. Expect to pay €1.50 to €3 each.
• Pizza al taglio: baked in large trays and sold by weight. How it works is explained in our guide to Rome on a budget.
• Pizza bianca: in neighbourhood bakeries, a flatbread simply topped with oil and salt, which Romans often fill with mortadella. Pizza rossa is its tomato equivalent.
• Trapizzino: a triangle of pizza dough opened like a pocket and filled with a slow-cooked dish (chicken cacciatora, meatballs, tripe). It was invented in 2008 in Testaccio by pizzaiolo Stefano Callegari.
• Porchetta: herb-roasted pork from Ariccia, in the Castelli Romani, served in a sandwich.
• Filetti di baccalà: fillets of salt cod fried in batter, a speciality of the fry shops in the centre.

The round evening pizza served in pizzerias differs from the Neapolitan kind, with a very thin, crisp base.

Sweets: maritozzo, gelato and crostata

• Maritozzo: a sweet bun split open and filled with a thick layer of whipped cream, eaten at breakfast with a coffee, all year round.
• Crostata di ricotta e visciole: a ricotta and sour cherry tart with a pastry lid, from the Roman Jewish tradition. The Boccione bakery, on via del Portico d'Ottavia, has been making it since the 19th century.
• Bignè di San Giuseppe: fried choux buns filled with pastry cream, sold from Carnival until 19 March, Father's Day in Italy.
• Gelato: choose gelaterias whose tubs are covered and whose colours look natural (a brownish-green pistachio rather than bright green).
• Grattachecca: in summer, kiosks along the Tiber embankments shave a block of ice by hand and pour syrup and fruit over it. The best known, Sora Mirella, is on the lungotevere degli Anguillara, near the Cestius bridge.

For drinks, the local white wine comes from the Castelli Romani, south-east of Rome, starting with Frascati, one of Italy's first appellations (1966). Coffee etiquette, at the counter or at a table, is covered in our guide to paying in Rome.

The Roman food calendar

An old Roman saying sets the menu for the end of the week: "giovedì gnocchi, venerdì pesce, sabato trippa". On Thursdays, traditional trattorias serve potato gnocchi, often with tomato sauce. On Fridays, a meatless day in Catholic tradition, it is fish, especially salt cod (baccalà), or pasta with chickpeas. On Saturdays, the day animals used to be slaughtered, tripe is on the menu. Many trattorias still follow this rhythm, so check the specials board.

Where to eat: markets and neighbourhoods

Markets are the best place to taste a lot in little time, with street food counters among the fruit and vegetable stalls.

• New Testaccio Market: via Lorenzo Ghiberti, in a modern hall, Piramide metro (line B). Monday to Saturday from 7am to 3:30pm, closed on Sundays. Several stalls serve sandwiches and Roman dishes.
• Trionfale Market: via Andrea Doria 41, a 10-minute walk from the Vatican Museums, Ottaviano or Cipro metro (line A). More than 270 stalls. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 7am to 2pm, Tuesday and Friday from 7am to 7pm, closed on Sundays.
• Campo de' Fiori: the most central market, open Monday to Saturday mornings, now geared towards visitors.
• Campagna Amica market at Circo Massimo: via di San Teodoro 74, near the Mouth of Truth, where Lazio producers sell their own goods, Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 3pm.
• Mercato Centrale Roma: inside Termini station, via Giovanni Giolitti 36, a food hall open daily from 7:30am to 11:30pm, handy on arrival or before a train.

For a sit-down meal in a trattoria, three neighbourhoods are known for their Roman cooking: Testaccio, the home of the quinto quarto; Trastevere, whose lanes are lined with trattorias and pizzerias; and the Monti district, near the Colosseum. The ghetto is the place for fried artichokes and Roman Jewish cuisine. In the evening, Roman food carries on with aperitivo and the outings described in our guide to Rome at night.

On streets close to the major monuments, be wary of menus without prices and of menus translated into ten languages with photos: the most common traps are described in our guide to scams to avoid in Rome.

Summary: what to eat and when

Market hours and indicative prices as checked in October 2026.

Further reading

To settle the bill without surprises (coperto, servizio, tipping), read our guide to paying in Rome. To eat well without overspending, see Rome on a budget, and to fit a market meal into your plans, check our Rome in 3 days itinerary.