Roman Restaurants: Ristorante Clemente

Ristorante Clemente
# Piazza della Maddalena 4
Rome, Italy
(06) 683-3633

The restaurant is apparently helmed by a female chef, and has a nice salubrious location on a square right off the Pantheon. The menu isn't terribly long and has a nice focus on fresh seafood - always a plus for me. It's a good bistro choice near the Pantheon and has some interesting and unusual entrees - a change from the occasionally too traditional cuisine of Rome.



We began with a salad of squid, octopus, mixed greens, and grapefruit, which was quite nice. The squid was cooked perfectly and did not turn into vaguely seafood flavored rubber as it is wont to do. I also enjoyed the acidic turn of the grapefruit. Could have been prettier but not looking a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.



For my entree, I selected the grilled tuna with tomatoes, caper, and vinegar - a very simple dish. This was well executed, though I had been expecting something perhaps a little flashier. It was simple, light, and not over-done.



My dad had a pasta with octopus and tomato. The pasta was nicely al-dente, and the sauce had a good marine flavor, with tender bits of invertebrate included.

Roman Restaurants: Enoteca Antica

Enoteca Antica
Via della Croce, 76
00187 Roma (Latium), Italy
+39 066 790896

For lunch, I decided to return to a place I'd been with the Tulane group. Enoteca Antica is a very pleasant wine bar and eatery on Via della Croce, close to the Spanish Steps and in a delightfully atmospheric alley. (You will hear accordians, be solicited to purchase pizza, and witness Italian women with dynamite boob jobs during your time here, consider it a culture experience.) The restaurant itself is pleasant both inside and out, and is a good place to cool off from a smack-yo-mama hot Rome afternoon. The menu is extensive and features excellent antipasto platters, thin-crust and wood fired pizzas, pastas, and some interesting meat dishes. Put it on your lunch list.


I had a salad with the usual excellent European tuna fish, mozarella, egg, potato, and tomato. Do not know why potato is considered a bizarre and nightmarish thing to put on a salad in the USA, unless it is a warm potato salad, but that is the nature of human existence.


My dad had the Eggplant Parmesan, which was a nice specimen of the genre: good marinara sauce, roasted instead of deep fried, a reasonable quantity of cheese. Eggplant parmesan is usually a horror show in the USA but may be safely ordered most places in Rome.

Roman Restaurants: Ala Toscana

Ala Toscano
Via Germanico, 58
00192 Roma (RM), Italy
+39 06 97615872



A Tuscan centered restaurant, this eatery focuses on good meat and lots of it. While walking to the bathroom immediately upon being seated, I found myself in a veritable gallery of cut, aged, and hanging dead animals. It made my heart pitter-pat with anticipation. The Europeans are much more realistic about the consumption of meat then we are in the Americas, are okay with window tableaus of hanging and flailed rabbits and lambs, do not become distressed when confronted with hocks or other unpleasant details. I like it.


A simple starter of prosciutto (thicker cut then what I'm used to, but good) and some figs. The figs are notable in that they are golden and very large, different from what I've had before. And expensive. Everything in Rome is goddamn expensive.


A prehistoric-type veal chop. Veal is cheaper then beef in Italy, which always amazes Americans. This was delicious, tender, and slightly primal. My mom grew more possessive of it then she usually does.


My dad ordered a simple steak. Steaks in Italy are usually thinner, rarer, and more flavorful then what we eat in the USA. This was delicious down to the beef-fat. Good Italian restaurants can truly do justice to a side of cow.


I ordered beef with porcini mushrooms, a sort of Tuscan stir-fry with rosemary, fresh and meaty porcinis, and cuts of thin steak. I really enjoyed this - rich as hell, would have been delicious on some sort of chewy bread as a sandwich. Fresh porcinis are a delightful thing in Italy, vastly better then the reconstituted ones.


As a side dish I had some very nice leaves of broccoli rabe, or at least that's what they told me. Whatever it was, it was a slightly bitter leafy green, one of my favorite things when cooked in a little olive oil and garlic. Could eat this all day.