RFK Cuisine · Italian · Rome
Best Italian Restaurants in Rome 2026
Italian · Rome · 7 rooms ranked · Updated June 2026
Compiled by the Restaurants for Kings editorial team · Published June 20, 2026 · Updated June 20, 2026
Heinz Beck's fagottelli look like ravioli and eat like the lightest carbonara ever served, and at three Michelin stars they are the most refined plate of pasta in the city. But Rome is the rare capital where the trattoria and the tasting menu sit at the same level: a slaughterhouse-district room that has cooked offal since before the war, a Trastevere kitchen that has not changed its carbonara since 1933, a salumeria where the guanciale is cured in-house. Eating Italian here means eating Roman — pecorino, pork, the four pasta classics — whether you spend forty euros or four hundred. Ranked on the cooking, the room, and what the bill buys, with the dish to order at each.
1.La Pergola
Heinz Beck's three-star rooftop above the city; fly in for the fagottelli and a once-a-decade tasting menu.
Heinz Beck has held three Michelin stars at La Pergola, on the top floor of the Rome Cavalieri above Monte Mario, since 2005, and the guide named him its Chef Mentor at the 2026 ceremony. The signature is the fagottelli "La Pergola" — tiny pasta pouches filled with a carbonara of egg yolk, pecorino and pepper, finished with guanciale and zucchini — a dish that defined modern Roman fine dining. Tasting menus run from roughly €320, the wine cellar is among Europe's deepest, and the terrace looks out over the whole of Rome. This is the city's apex table, the one to build a trip around. Book several weeks ahead through the hotel and take the tasting.
Reserve through the Rome Cavalieri; the fagottelli, then the full tasting.
2.Il Pagliaccio
Anthony Genovese's intimate two-star near Piazza Navona; book for Italian technique routed through Asia, fewer than forty covers.
Anthony Genovese cooks at Il Pagliaccio, a small, calm two-Michelin-star room near Piazza Navona, and his food filters Italian tradition through years spent cooking across Asia — a personal style with no real analogue in the city. The room seats fewer than forty, the tasting menus land around €200, and the kitchen's confidence shows in dishes that pair Roman ingredients with Japanese and Southeast Asian technique without gimmickry. Where La Pergola is grand, Il Pagliaccio is quiet and exacting, the connoisseur's second course in any serious Rome itinerary. Reserve well ahead and let the kitchen lead with the longer tasting.
Book direct; take the tasting menu and the wine pairing.
3.Roscioli
The modern benchmark for Roman pasta; squeeze into the salumeria for the city's most argued-over carbonara.
Roscioli, the salumeria con cucina at Via dei Giubbonari 21 near Campo de' Fiori, is where a generation of travelers learned what carbonara should taste like — built on the family's own cured guanciale and aged pecorino, the dish landing around €18. The narrow room is wedged among hanging hams and a wine list thousands of labels deep, and the burrata, the supplì and the amatriciana are as carefully sourced as the pasta. It is the most-booked table in the old center for a reason, and a 50 Top Italy fixture. Reserve days ahead, sit downstairs among the salumi, and order the carbonara first.
Book online; carbonara, a plate of burrata, and a bottle off the wall.
4.Armando al Pantheon
The Gargioli family's trattoria steps from the Pantheon; book for the Roman offal classics done exactly as in 1961.
The Gargioli family has run Armando al Pantheon at Salita dei Crescenzi 31, a few meters from the Pantheon, since 1961, and the third generation now cooks the cucina romana canon without a single concession to the tourist crush outside. The rigatoni con la pajata and the coda alla vaccinara are the offal-led classics to order, with Roman pastas in the mid-teens and a sour-cherry tart to finish. It is tiny, listed in the Michelin Guide, and closed on Sundays, which keeps it a locals' room despite the address. This is the straightest line to traditional Rome on the list. Phone ahead and order the pajata.
Reserve by phone; rigatoni con la pajata and the coda alla vaccinara.
5.Glass Hostaria
Cristina Bowerman's one-star in Trastevere; book for the city's most inventive Italian cooking in a modern room.
Cristina Bowerman runs Glass Hostaria at Vicolo del Cinque 58 in Trastevere, a sharp, modern dining room that is the architectural opposite of the lane it sits on, and her one Michelin star was reconfirmed for 2026. Bowerman, one of Italy's most prominent women chefs, cooks a creative, well-traveled menu that pulls Roman ingredients somewhere unexpected, with tasting menus around €150. It is the room for a diner who wants Rome looking forward rather than back, and a counterpoint to the trattorias a few streets away. Book ahead and take the tasting to see the full range.
Reserve direct; the tasting menu and the wine pairing.
6.Felice a Testaccio
Testaccio's temple to cacio e pepe; book for the tonnarelli mantecato tableside in a pecorino emulsion.
Felice Trivelloni opened this Testaccio trattoria at Via Mastro Giorgio 29 in 1936, and the family still makes its name on a single dish: the tonnarelli cacio e pepe, mantecated tableside until the pecorino and pepper emulsify into the most famous version of the plate in Rome. Around €14, it is theater and comfort at once, backed by saltimbocca, abbacchio and the rest of the cucina romana repertoire. The room sits in the old slaughterhouse quarter that gave Rome its offal cooking, and reservations are essentially mandatory. Book ahead, watch the cacio e pepe finished at the table, and order the abbacchio after.
Reserve direct; tonnarelli cacio e pepe, then the abbacchio.
7.Da Enzo al 29
The Trastevere trattoria that never changed; queue for a carbonara and a tiramisù that taste like 1933.
Da Enzo al 29 takes its name from its address, Via dei Vascellari 29, on a quiet Trastevere lane, and since 1933 it has not moved, expanded or modernized. The carbonara and the amatriciana are the orders — Roman pastas around €14, made with carefully sourced Lazio ingredients — finished with a tiramisù that regulars rate among the city's best. The room holds barely a dozen tables, so the line forms outside most evenings well before service, and it is worth it. This is the unreconstructed Trastevere trattoria the neighborhood's newer rooms imitate. Come early, put your name down, and order the carbonara and the supplì.
Walk in early or book ahead; carbonara, supplì, and the tiramisù.
How Rome eats Italian
In Rome, "Italian" means Roman. The cooking is built on a short, fierce vocabulary — pecorino romano, guanciale, the offal of the old Testaccio mattatoio — and its center of gravity is the four pasta classics: carbonara, cacio e pepe, gricia and amatriciana. Even the fine-dining rooms answer to it; Heinz Beck's fagottelli and Roscioli's carbonara are the same dish at opposite ends of the price spectrum. Order pasta as the heart of the meal, and the secondo as a supporting act.
Geography sorts the list. The old center clusters Roscioli, Armando al Pantheon and Il Pagliaccio within a short walk; Trastevere holds Glass Hostaria and Da Enzo al 29 across the river; Testaccio is Felice's slaughterhouse-district home; and La Pergola sits apart, up on Monte Mario. Romans eat late — 8:30 is early — and the trattorias close around the Ferragosto weeks in August. For the rest of the city beyond pasta, the Rome dining guide maps every neighborhood by occasion.
Where not to look for it
Skip these for real Roman cooking
The piazza tourist traps. The terraces ringing the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and the Trevi Fountain trade on the view, not the kitchen — laminated photo menus, microwaved pasta, a cover charge to match the address. Walk five minutes off the square to any room on this list instead.
La Pergola for a casual night. Beck's three-star room is a jacket-required, multi-hour, four-figure-for-two occasion. It is the wrong call for a relaxed dinner or a quick plate of pasta — for that, point yourself at Da Enzo al 29 or Felice a Testaccio.
Frequently asked
What is the best Italian restaurant in Rome?
La Pergola, Heinz Beck's three-Michelin-star room atop the Rome Cavalieri, is the city's apex restaurant, with the fagottelli — Beck's featherweight reinvention of carbonara — as its signature. For Roman cooking rather than haute cuisine, Roscioli's carbonara and Armando al Pantheon's offal classics are the benchmarks. Choose by whether you want a special-occasion tasting menu or the real cucina romana in a trattoria.
Which restaurants in Rome have three Michelin stars?
La Pergola is the only three-Michelin-star restaurant in Rome, held by Heinz Beck since 2005 and reconfirmed in the 2026 Italy guide, where Beck also took the Michelin Chef Mentor award. Il Pagliaccio under Anthony Genovese holds two stars, while Glass Hostaria, Pipero and Aroma carry one each. La Pergola is the table to plan a Rome trip around.
Where do you eat the best carbonara and cacio e pepe in Rome?
Roscioli on Via dei Giubbonari is the modern benchmark for carbonara, built on its own guanciale and aged pecorino, and Da Enzo al 29 in Trastevere is the trattoria version. For cacio e pepe, Felice a Testaccio mantecates the tonnarelli tableside in a pecorino emulsion. All three are Roman institutions; book ahead, because the small rooms fill fast.
How far ahead should I book restaurants in Rome?
Book La Pergola and Il Pagliaccio several weeks out, and earlier for a weekend or a holiday week. The trattorias take less notice but still need it: Roscioli, Felice a Testaccio and Da Enzo al 29 fill their small rooms most nights, so reserve a few days ahead and accept an early or late seating. Armando al Pantheon takes phone bookings and closes Sundays.
What is cucina romana?
Cucina romana is the traditional cooking of Rome and the Lazio region, built on pork, sheep's-milk pecorino, and the offal of the old Testaccio slaughterhouse. Its canon is the four pasta classics — carbonara, cacio e pepe, gricia and amatriciana — alongside dishes like coda alla vaccinara and rigatoni con la pajata. Armando al Pantheon, Felice a Testaccio and Da Enzo al 29 cook it straight.
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