Rome for foodies

Best restaurants

Rome around Termini and the Viminale is not where Roman food writing usually sends you, and that is precisely why it earns a list of its own. This is the working city's dining ground: trattorie whose lunch service starts at 12:00 and runs into the small hours, pizzerie that never bothered to redesign themselves for Instagram, a Japanese counter that quietly outlasted three trend cycles. The twelve rooms below sit inside a rectangle bounded roughly by Via Torino, Via Piave, Via del Castro Pretorio and Santa Maria Maggiore: a fifteen-minute walk end to end. None of them are secrets, and none are trying to be. They are the addresses locals use before a train, after a shift, on a Tuesday night when the tourist grid a kilometre west is already booked. Expect regional Roman cooking done without apology, pizza in both the round Roman and the tall Neapolitan idioms, and hours honest enough that you can plan a late arrival without a backup. If you want the postcard, go to Trastevere. If you want dinner, stay here.