When in Rome, Eat at These Five Restaurants

Gusto
Neighborhood: Via del Corso
Foodie Tip: Not just for food, kitchen-lovers should make use of the gourmet bookstore with one of the largest collection of cookbooks in Rome.

Located near Via del Corso, this massive food emporium features an on-site gourmet restaurant, wine bar, pizzeria and kitchenware shop. Housed around a 1930s marble piazza, the ever-expanding collection of boutique eateries is a lunch staple for socialite housewives who share the space with dapper businessmen negotiating their way through ever-expressive power meetings.

Divided between two separate restaurants, the more casual eatery is a street-level pizzeria of homemade pastas and fresh salads. More upscale, and somewhat calmer, is the upstairs restaurant with its tailored décor of club chairs and paneled-walls serving Italian and Pacific Rim cuisine in such combinations as spaghetti stir-fried with market-fresh vegetables, tempura prawns with spring vegetables and stir-fried scallops with Italian herbs.

Glass Hostaria
Neighborhood: Trastevere
Foodie Tips: Even if you're full, try the white truffle crème brûlée to finish.

One of the hottest restaurants to hit Trastevere in years, Glass Hostaria is a cutting-edge architectural eatery with a traditional flair for local artesian cuisine. Tucked inside a 15th-century palazzo on a picturesque alleyway, the uber-modern space is a lofty two-story design with iron-staircase rising through its center. Stainless-steel tables with not-so-comfy resin chairs line the main dining room with parquet-wood floors and exposed bedrock columns.

A pan-Italian menu features foodie-pleasing delights and traditional dishes at a surprisingly affordable price. Local market-fresh salads and vegetables are coupled with homemade breads from a wood fire oven. Pasta dishes include Castelmagno-stuffed ravioli in butter emulsion with fresh shavings of white Alba truffles. Entrees vary between provincial chicken or breaded veal cutlet to a more elaborate ricotta-stuffed duck breast with cherry sauce.

« Previous Page

1 2 3

Next Page »