If you are visiting Rome and you don’t want to eat in a touristic place my suggestion is Fresia.

Fresia is the Italian word for the flower Freesia.
Fresia is a bar, a restaurant and a wine-bar where Romans go daily for a cappuccino at breakfast,  for a brunch during the lunchbreak, for a drink in the late afternoon (during the happy hour), for  dinner or  after…

There you can taste traditional Roman cooking and Italian wines while listening to live music.
So, for a sandwich or a drink, with your family or for a romantic dinner, try out Fresia.

Italian version.

I found a place in Rome that can suit your needs: it’s a restaurant that also organizes cocktail parties and aperitifs, it’s a wine bar, a club and a sport café, a pizzeria and a location for parties and events…

This place is named Sport café.

With friends you should go there watching a soccer match and eat a pizza, with your girlfriend you should have a drink on the romantic terrace: they always got an answer!

Try it out…

Italian version

Elegant gentlemen with sophisticated tastes smoking cigars in a stylish cafè… those were the days!
In the heart of Rome, near the Colosseum, you can experience this ancient high society personally.

There’s an historic cafè, called Caffè Martini, that keeps this world alive.
Caffè Martini, besides the famous restaurant and coffee bar, also offers a Cigar bar, where to taste wines and spirits, while smoking a quality cigar.

Feel like a nineteenth-century intellectual!

Italian version.

If you want to taste a Tuscan specialty you can come in Florence and taste the original or try to make it on your own!
If you want to prepare ribollita, this is the recipe I found on Italian cuisine.

“Ribollita is a classic Tuscan soup that’s made with stale bread, so it’s very filling. Poor country people didn’t waste anything - and this was a great way of using up leftovers.
The name ribollita means ‘re-boiled’ and it would have been reheated day after day – increasing in flavour each time. There are different versions of the recipe, but the main ingredients are: stale bread, cannellini (white) beans and green leafy vegetables - some versions also add sausage or prosciutto. Adapt the recipe below to your taste.

Ingredients:

1 small green cabbage
4-5 handfuls of other green leafy vegetables (I like cavolo nero best)
1 leek
1 stick of celery
2 carrots
1 large tomato
1 large onion (red is best)
Olive oil
2 cloves of garlic (optional)
6-8 slices of stale white bread (Italian if possible)
250-300 grams (around 8.8-10.6 ounces) of cannellini (white) beans – pre cooked or canned
salt, pepper
About 1.2 litres (around 5.2 cups) cold water
4 Italian sausages (chopped) or 2 slices of prosciutto (optional)

Method

Roughly chop all the vegetables. Dice the onion, sauté it in a little olive oil (amount can vary to your taste). Crush or slice the garlic and add to the oil, soften it, then add all the vegetables. Let them soften gently too.
Add the water, (if you’re using meat you can add it at this stage) bring it to the boil, then let it all simmer for around 1 and a half hours. Add more water if desired. Stir in the beans, season with salt and pepper, and add the sliced bread.
Let it boil for 10 minutes, then serve – perhaps drizzled with more olive oil and sprinkled with Parmesan.
An alternative method is not to add the bread to the soup as it cooks, but to use the slices to line the tureen or bowl. The soup is then poured on top of it and soaks in.
Warming and satisfying on a chilly winter’s day.”

But if you want to taste the original first, try out Lo Scudo Restaurant, in Florence.
Just few steps from the Santa Maria del Fiore Dome, this restaurant offers Italian traditional cuisine, and typical Tuscan and Florentine recipes.

Italian version.

Ristorante Lo Scudo
Via dell’Oriuolo 53r - Florence

Piazza Navona is a famous city square in Rome, this is the wikipedia’s description.

“It follows the plan of an ancient Roman circus, the 1st century Stadium of Domitian, where the Romans came to watch the agones (”games”): It was known as ‘Circus Agonalis’ (competition arena). It is believed that over time the name changed to ‘in agone’ to ‘navone’ and eventually to ‘navona’.

Defined as a public space in the last years of 15th century, when the city market was transferred to it from the Campidoglio, the Piazza Navona is now the pride of Baroque Roman art history.
It features sculptural and architectural creations by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose famous Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers, 1651) stands in the center; by Francesco Borromini and Girolamo Rainaldi, who designed the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone; and by Pietro da Cortona, who painted the galleria in the Pamphilj palace.

The market was again moved in 1869 to the Campo de’ Fiori. The piazza long hosted theatrical shows and horse races. From 1652 until 1866, when the festival was suppressed, it was flooded on every August Saturday and Sunday for elaborate celebrations of the Pamphilj family.

The Piazza Navona contains two additional fountains, sculpted by Giacomo della Porta: the Fontana di Nettuno (1574), located at the northern area of the piazza; and the Fontana del Moro (1576), located at the southern end.”

If you want to visit Piazza Navona you can dine at Navona Notte Restaurant and Pizzeria. There you will taste pizza, pasta and the Roman tipicalties.

Italian version.

As you well know, food is really important for Italian people and, if you want to say that you visited Rome, you have to taste what they use to cook there: ancient recipes and typical flavors.

If you want to eat what Romans eat, try Osteria Le Streghe.
It’s a restaurant in the centre of Rome, but not in a tourist area.
It is a real Italian trattoria, that offers typical Roman specialties.
It’s perfect for those who want to really live Rome and its traditions, without dining in tourist restaurants.

Italian version.

I always have problems when I have to translate the word “Enoteca”, because it is a particoular place that the dictionary translates with “Wine Bar”.
This is the description I found on wikipedia.

Enoteca (plural: Enoteche) is an Italian word, formed by analogy with biblioteca (”book repository, library”), which literally means ”wine repository” (from Oeno/Eno- “wine”, and teca ????, “receptacle, case, box”), but is used to describe a special type of local or regional wine shop that originated in Italy.

The concept of an enoteca has also spread to some other countries. A genuine enoteca is primarily directed at giving visitors or tourists the possibility to taste these wines at a reasonable fee and possibly to buy them.

An enoteca is often run in collaboration with growers or growers’ or tourism organisations in the village or region. The reason such establishments were named to connote ”wine libraries” was that they were intended as a hands-on source of information on local wines rather than as regular outlets for larger quantities of each wine, or primarily intended for established customers.

Often, an enoteca stocks rather small amounts of each wine, and customers who wish to purchase large quantities after tasting are referred directly to the producers. In some cases, an enoteca will also sell other local foodstuff and/or serve small snacks to go with the wines.

Since some enoteche serve snacks with the wine, enoteca has also been used as the name of some wine bars or restaurants, especially bistro-style restaurants with Italian food.

Rome is a large city, with many different places and styles inside.

The most tourist areas are the Vatican Dome (San Peter’s Cathedral) and the Colosseum zone.
There’s another historic district that is worth visiting: EUR.
EUR was idealized by Benito Mussolini in 1935 and was supposed to be the expansion of Rome towards the South-West.

As wikipedia says, EUR offers a large-scale image of how urban Italy might have looked, if the Fascist regime had not fallen; wide axially planned streets and austere buildings of either stile Littorio, inspired by ancient Roman architecture, or Rationalism, modern architecture but built using traditional limestone, tuff and marble.
An example is the Civilization Palace, called the Square Colosseum (in the picture).

If you want to go visiting EUR, my advice is to have dinner (or lunch) in Birreria Spaten Restaurant.
An old family run restaurant that offers wonderful typical dishes.
Besides the restaurant pizzeria and the pizza by the slice, Birreria Spaten also takes care of Catering service, parties and receptions.

Italian version.

Belcore is one of the main characters of the melodramma giocoso “L’elisir d’amore” by Gaetano Donizzetti. “L’elisir d’amore” contains the popular aria “Una furtiva lagrima” (also used by Woody Allen) and is one of the 20 most performed operas in North America.

Ristorante Belcore’s history could be told as that of the character from whom the restaurant takes its name. Belcore is similar to a Don Juan, suave and persuasive. He is a seducer.

Abdel is the host of this hidden island in the heart of Florence. This restaurant offers a culinary adventure through the flavors of creative cuisine, also offering themed dinners and exotic flavors.

Belcore Restaurant is decorated with paintings and mosaics by young artists, and after dinner is the perfect place to drink something at the wine bar.

Italian version.

Business lunches in Florence | Restaurants in Florence | Restaurants in the center of Florence | vegetarian cuisine

If you’re in Florence and want to dine out in a traditional place, try out a restaurant placed in an ancient and typically Tuscan “Buca” (cellar).
The restaurant “Buca Poldo”, for example, is situated in a buca just as stone’s throw from Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio.

There you can taste the typical Tuscan Cuisine (Crostini Toscani, just to mention one specialty), besides the original specialties created by the chef.
A really Florentine evening!

Italian version.