Trastevere is probably the most famous food neighborhood in Rome, which is both the good news and the bad news. The good news: real trattorias where nonna is still in the kitchen and the carbonara hasn't changed since 1970. The bad news: the streets right around Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere are full of places charging 22 euros for a bag of dried pasta with tomato sauce from a can. This Trastevere food guide is the short list of places I actually send my friends to. Trattorias, street food, gelato, wine bars. Save it on your phone before dinner.
How to Spot (and Avoid) Tourist Traps in Trastevere
A few warning signs before I give you specific names. A guy outside the door trying to wave you in? Walk away. Photos of every dish on the menu? Walk away. Menu printed in four languages with a view of Santa Maria basilica? You're paying a location tax, not eating Roman food. The decent places are almost always one or two streets back from the main piazza. Handwritten daily specials pinned above the bar. Italian being spoken at the next table. A waiter who looks slightly put-out that you exist. These are all good signs.
Best Trattorias in Trastevere for Classic Roman Cuisine
Da Enzo al 29
Small, no-frills trattoria on Via dei Vascellari that plenty of Romans will tell you is the best traditional place in the neighborhood. The cacio e pepe is what everyone shows up for. Two ingredients, pecorino and black pepper, and they somehow make it creamy without cream and peppery without it tasting harsh. The carciofi alla giudia (deep-fried Jewish-style artichokes, in season roughly February through April) are crisp like potato chips. The tiramisu is made that morning. Downside: they don't take reservations for most tables, so either be there at 7:30 when they open for dinner or bring a book. The line is worth it.
Trattoria Da Teo
On Piazza dei Ponziani, just off the main tourist flow. Da Teo has a courtyard covered in climbing vines that in my opinion is the most romantic dinner spot in the city, or at least top three. The menu is classic Roman: amatriciana, carbonara, saltimbocca alla romana, seasonal contorni. In spring and summer order the fried zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy. Book ahead, especially if you want the outdoor tables. They fill up fast in April and May.
Tonnarello
Tonnarello is noisier and bigger than the first two, but the portions are huge and the quality holds up. The house pasta is tonnarello, a thick hand-rolled spaghetti, and they'll do it in any of the classic Roman sauces. Outdoor seating spills out onto Via della Paglia and fills up fast, but the restaurant is large enough that you can usually grab a table without waiting too long. The house wine is a liter carafe, honest and cheap. This is where I bring visiting family when there are six of us and we're hungry.
Best Street Food and Quick Bites
Supplizio
First, what a supplì is: a deep-fried rice ball with a core of mozzarella that stretches into long gooey strings when you pull it apart. Romans call that stretch "al telefono" because it looks like an old telephone cord. Supplizio is a tiny shop on Via dei Banchi Vecchi, just over the river from Trastevere, and they've turned the humble supplì into something closer to a craft food. Get the classic tomato-and-mozzarella, but also try whichever special they've got on the board that day. Eat one standing on the sidewalk. That's how it's done.
Trapizzino
Invented in Testaccio by Stefano Callegari in 2008, with a Trastevere location on Piazza Trilussa. A trapizzino is a triangular pocket of pizza dough (imagine pizza bianca folded and cut into a triangle, then hollowed out) stuffed with slow-cooked Roman stews. Chicken cacciatore, oxtail, eggplant parmigiana, meatballs in tomato sauce. Grab one and eat it walking down the cobbles toward the river. They look bigger than they are. Order two. You'll thank me.
Work up an appetite first
Our morning Classic Rome tour ends near the Vatican — a perfect time to cross the river into Trastevere for a well-deserved lunch. Book your spot →
Best Gelato in Trastevere
Fatamorgana Trastevere
Quick rule for gelato anywhere in Rome: if the pistachio is bright green, walk out. Real pistachio is a muted khaki. Real banana is gray, not yellow. Fatamorgana knows this, which is why their gelato looks almost drab compared to the neon stuff in tourist shops. The Via Roma Libera location in Trastevere is just as good as the original in Prati. Everything is made fresh daily from natural ingredients. Try the weirder combinations (there's one called Kentuki with tobacco and dark chocolate that sounds insane and works), but the pistachio and the fondente are also among the best in Rome.
Otaleg
Otaleg is "gelato" spelled backwards, and the shop is exactly as off-kilter as the name. A tiny place on Via di San Cosimato (they moved from the Vascellari location a while back) where the owner Marco Radicioni makes flavors like ricotta and fig, celery and ginger, rosemary and honey. The menu rotates by season. Go with an open mind and order something you'd never normally try. Worst case you get a bad-ish gelato. Best case you eat something you'll still be talking about next year.
Best Wine Bars in Trastevere
Enoteca Ferrara
Wine bar on Piazza Trilussa with one of the deepest lists in Rome. Heavy on small Italian producers you'll never have heard of. The staff know the list cold and they won't make you feel dumb for asking. Tell them what you like, your budget, and whether you're eating or just drinking, and they'll steer you right. The small plates are exactly what you want alongside: cured meats, cheeses, bruschette of whatever's in season. Works for aperitivo, works for a nightcap. I've never had a bad glass here.
Litro
Off the main drag on Via Fratelli Bonnet, up the hill a bit. Litro is a natural wine bar that's become a quiet favorite among Rome's food crowd. The list leans organic and biodynamic, there's always something strange on by the glass, and the rotating small plates are genuinely creative instead of just a cheese board. The room is casual and most of the people in it live in the neighborhood. Good place to end a night when you want one more glass but not a scene.
Evening plans before dinner?
Join our twilight walk through ancient Rome at 5 PM, then head to Trastevere for dinner — the perfect evening combination. Join the twilight walk →
Morning Coffee the Roman Way
Morning in Trastevere goes like this: you stand at the bar counter. You order a caffè (which means espresso in Italy, never "coffee"). You also get a cornetto, the Italian version of a croissant, filled with crema pastry cream or jam or Nutella. You eat it standing. You pay and leave. Bar San Calisto on the piazza of the same name is the unpretentious neighborhood classic for this. Cheap espresso, honest pastries, university kids and eighty-year-old regulars sharing the counter. Important: do not sit at a table unless you want to pay double. In Italy, seated service costs roughly twice what counter service does. Nobody explains this to tourists and then tourists get upset at the bill. Now you know.
The honest version of this Trastevere food guide is that the best places don't need to advertise. The regulars are the people in the apartments upstairs, and that's the whole review. One last thing: in Rome, dinner does not start before 8:30 PM. If you show up at 7:30 to a trattoria that's totally empty, that can mean two very different things. Either the kitchen just opened and you've got the luxury of an empty room, or the place is dead for a reason. Use your eyes. And if you see locals eating, sit down.
