My Five Favorite Restaurants in Rome 2024: A new No. 1

An old newspaper colleague is coming to Rome next summer and asked me, “You up for being a tour guide?” I give him the same answer I give all friends visiting Rome.

No.

I am not a tour guide. Visitors to Rome need a historian, a professional, someone who knows not only the big picture importance of Rome’s monuments but tons of factoids that add so much to guided tours. They can answer any question – with the exception of this moronic inquiry from a tourist after emerging from the subway at the Colosseum, “How did they know to build the Colosseum so close to a subway?”

However, I am a very good guide to Rome in one area. 

Restaurants.

I know the best places in every neighborhood. They are authentic, affordable and delicious. Followers of this blog know I regularly do my Five Favorite Restaurants in Rome. My 2024 edition is late but it’s here..

Today I reveal my new list (neighborhood is in parentheses). Every year it changes and sometimes restaurants make it after just one visit; others disappear because I just haven’t been back through no fault of their own. But one remained on the list for years and I can’t recommend Renato e Luisa enough. I never heard anything but praise from anyone I sent there.

For more recommendations, click on the years for my lists from 2023, 2022, 2019 and 2016.

Angelina (Testaccio)

Info: Via Galvani 24a, 06-5728-3840, http://www.ristoranteangelina.com/ristorante-angelina-a-testaccio.html, 12:30-3 p.m., 7:30-11:30 p.m. Wednesday-Monday, 6:30-11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

I bumped it up from No. 2 last year because I found myself recommending it to more people and will take another American couple there later this month. Angelina gets an edge because of its setting. Its long rooftop has numerous tables in a garden of orange and lemon trees. It’s like dining in a treehouse that smells like a smoothie.

On a warm summer night for dinner or sunny fall afternoon for lunch, in a quaint, historical neighborhood with few tourists, It’s a side of Rome few people know exists.

And the food is good. 

It has all the traditional Roman dishes, many of which originated in this neighborhood where in the early 20th century stood the biggest slaughterhouse in Europe.

Rigatoni all’amatriciana, spaghetti carbonara, cacio e pepe. They’re all there and start at €13.

But Angelina likes experimenting. Like with its nettle ravioli sage butter and Reggiano reserve or its Danish heifer carpaccio, truffle mayonnaise, hazelnuts and crispy bread.

Save room for one of my favorite desserts in town: passion cheesecake with a crunchy brown sugar biscuit topped with mango, fresh cheese sauce and passion fruit sauce.

Renato e Luisa (Centro Storico)

Via dei Barbieri 25, 06-686-9660, https://renatoeluisa.it/, 7:30-11 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-3 p.m. Sunday.

Renato e Luisa has made my list in 2023, 2022 and 2019. I keep going back to when I first retired to Rome in 2014. Two Roman friends told me, “It’s where Romans go.” 

It’s now where I go when I want to have a fun night out in the Center. I meet visiting friends at Il Goccetto, my favorite wine bar in town, and then cross Campo de’ Fiori to Renato e Luisa. It’s on a little side street perpendicular to Torre Argentina where Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 B.C. So it has the romantic element going for it.

Like Angelina, Renato e Luisa has Roman cuisine with gourmet twists. When I’m not terribly hungry I order the saltimbocca alla romana. It takes the traditional dish of pounded veal and adds Marsala sauce (from the famous Sicilian wine) and apples. Or the fettuccine pachino e ricotta di bufala (Flat pasta noodles with buffalo ricotta and cherry tomatoes). 

The father of a famous Testaccio butcher, Renato Astrologo is a self-taught chef who develops new dishes nearly every day. But one constant is my favorite antipasto in Rome:  goat cheese with pralines, walnuts and honey.

Try not to get filled up on too much of the yummy homemade bread. You must save for the excellent tiramisu afterward.

(Note: It will be closed from Thursday to Oct. 28.)

Santa Lucia (Centro Storico)

Info: Largo Febo 12, 39-06-6880-2427, https://www.ristorantesantaluciaroma.it/, info@santaluciaristorante.it, noon-3 p.m., 7-11 p.m.

Centro Storico is known for Rome’s best monuments but not the best restaurants. Many are on major piazzas packed with tourists eating mass-produced pastas made with little care except for the volume it drives.

Renato e Luisa has always been an exception but I’m adding Santa Lucia this year. Yes, it is also touristy. Tourists discovered it from its scene in Eat. Pray. Love, the 2010 film where Julia Roberts plays Elizabeth Gilbert, the writer who spent four months in Rome, four in India and four in Bali trying to find herself.

In one scene, she is sitting at Santa Lucia trying out her Italian and there’s a montage of Santa Lucia cooks preparing dishes like spaghetti carbonara and pappardelle con ragù cinghiale. 

It’s a mouth-watering scene and a couple of expat functions there had me going back for more. The location is a short block from Piazza Navona at the end of touristy Via di Santa Maria Dell’Anima. You’ll hear more foreign tongues than Italian. 

But in a city more famous for its family run trattorias than its romantic hideaways, Santa Lucia is the one place you take a special someone. You sit on a terrace under three big patio umbrellas surrounded by lime trees and potted ferns. A white candle inside a glass wind protector adorns each table.

Unlike many romantic restaurants where the atmosphere is so seductive you forget what you order, Santa Lucia’s food is very good. I love the juicy little meatballs drenched in parmesan sauce and mezze maniche amatriciana (half-size thick tube pasta in tomato sauce with pig’s cheek, onion and pecorino romano cheese). 

Its prices reflect its clientele. Pasta dishes range from €17-€35. But if you’re paying for atmosphere and the name, the food better be good. It is.

Joseph (Cornelia)

Info: Via Accursio 12, 39-06-662-3887, https://ristorantejoseph.it/, 12:30-3 p.m., 7 p.m.-midnight.

I didn’t like Joseph at first. Famous since it opened in 1999 for its steaks and lauded by Alessandro Castellani, my best Italian friend and Rome restaurant connoisseur, I was disappointed in my first two steaks. I preferred its Italian food which was superb. Watching them grill steaks on an open grill was a nice touch, though.

But I kept going back and my last three steaks could match most anything I’ve had in the U.S. I just had to order them medium instead of medium rare. I particularly liked the beef fillet with teriyaki and almonds. Rome doesn’t do meat well, but Joseph is one of the few places I can go when I miss a good juicy steak. And they’re not expensive, ranging from €18-€24.

Still, my favorite dishes at Joseph are its pastas. Its seafood risotto is among the best risottos I’ve had in Italy. The famous rice stew is packed with fat shrimp, black shells filled with big clams, grilled octopus and cherry tomatoes all covered in a rich sauce.

And for something different, try a coccodrilli, a rolled, filled pizza that looks a bit like what the Italian word means: crocodile. 

 Da Enzo al 29 (Trastevere)

Info: Via dei Vascellari 29, 39-06-581-2260, https://www.daenzoal29.com/, info@daenzoal29.com, 12:15-3 p.m., 7-11 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Truth be told, I haven’t eaten here in a while. I am put off by its policy of no reservations, forcing me to stand waiting for a table, all of which are always full early. But there’s a reason they’re full and that’s the reason I must include Da Enzo in this year’s list.

Also, the late founder, Enzo Di Felice whose family opened it four decades ago, was also a wild fan of my beloved AS Roma soccer team. 

But the real reason Da Enzo finally made my list is its pasta carbonara is arguably the best in Rome. They make the creamy, eggy, rich pasta with big, lean hunks of bacon right at your table. Add a half liter of house red wine from Rome’s Lazio region and you have an authentic, rich, delicious, inexpensive Roman meal.

Via Vascellari is a small, pretty side street away from the wild chaos that is much of Trastevere, Rome’s heartbeat of overseas student mayhem. Seating is limited, both inside and out. Go at 6:30 a half hour before it opens, and put your name on the list. Or, better yet, go for lunch. There’s shade in the summer and solitude all year round.