Trastevere Food Tour: Rome’s Tastiest Neighborhood

Good evening, buonasera, and welcome to the Trastevere Twilight food tour from Eating Europe. My name is Valentina and today I'm going to guide you through one of the most iconic food tours, the Trastevere Twilight food tours. Before we start, I'm going to teach you an Italian word, andiamo. Andiamo means let's go in Italian, so I'm going to say andiamo. Now I'm taking you through one of the most famous trattorie we have in Trastevere. Welcome to the first stop and welcome to Da Enzo at 29. This is certainly the most famous backstreet trattorie of Trastevere. Now they're owned by four siblings. Here we're going to be breaking the ice with a glass of prosecco. Andiamo. Here we're going to be tasting stracciatella. Stracciatella cheese, it's not locally produced. It's produced in a different region, Puglia region. A small town called Andrea produces this beautiful cheese, which is practically strings of mozzarella with fresh cream. On the other side is the home production of cherry tomatoes and basil. Here you're going to be tasting also the home production of extra virgin olive oil. What makes it an extra virgin olive oil? The first cold press of the olives. Why do we do a cold press? Because it doesn't affect the organoleptic properties like vitamin D and vitamin E, which are kept in the extra virgin. The best way to try the extra virgin is with a piece of bread. It doesn't need to be cooked. In fact, it would be a waste otherwise. Here you're going to be tasting also the Jewish style artichokes. But how do you eat it? First, you take the leaves like potato chips, so you can use your fingers. But don't forget that the stem is the tastiest part, so you can eat the entire thing. Buon appetito. So we use prosecco just like champagne. It is used for celebrating, but it would be unfair to call it Italian champagne. It would be unfair to champagne and prosecco. They are made in a different way, but they use for the same purpose, which is celebrating. Salute! Welcome to our second stop and welcome to Ristorante Spirito Divino, which means divine spirit, or Spirito Divino, which means spirit of wine. So these guys play with words. This building that you see, it's from the 11th century. In fact, it was also an ancient synagogue. If you look carefully below the column in the middle, there are carved ancient Hebrew letters. During 1258, unfortunately, a terrible fire occurred and most of the inside of the synagogue got terribly ruined. But amazingly enough, the outside shell of the building remained exactly the same. Now, I want you to think as the stop of you going back in a time machine. Each step that you're taking downstairs is approximately 75 or 80 years back in the past. Of course, you don't have to do the math. I'll be telling you all this place. Try to guess though what you're going to be finding downstairs. Vino! Of course, it says it in the words. So first, we're going to be visiting the ancient cellar and then you're going to be doing the tastings at the ground floor. Andiamo! So now I can officially say that we are all standing on the original level from an ancient Roman courtyard. Just to give you an idea about all these places, I'll compare it with the Colosseum. So they ended up building the Colosseum around the 80 AD. Well, this is dated back on the 80 BC, which makes it in fact 160 years older than the Colosseum. This place is also protected by the Ministry of Archaeology. In fact, nothing can be touched or altered in the room. If you look carefully, also the bottles are not strictly attached to the walls and some of the bottles are protected with clean film because they can't even do the dustings here. Back in 1849, in this room, they discovered that amazing statue. The statue of the athlete. The name is Apoxiomenos, which is now kept at the Vatican Museum. In fact, it's in its own room. But you might be wondering why, Valentina, is that statue so important that it's kept at the Vatican Museum? Well, it's the first statue that was ever built in history in three dimensions. That's why it's in its own room. So you can go 360 degrees to see it all, representing an athlete or a wrestler. Also, in this room, they discovered other bronzes, which are now kept at the Museo Capitolini di Roma. Between the stairs and the wine, there's a light that goes down below and there's a tunnel that they discovered that goes all the way down to the crypt of Santa Cecilia's church, which is on the right hand side of the restaurant. And now please follow me to the for the tastings. Here we're going to be toasting with a glass of Sangiovese. Sangiovese comes from Latin, Sanguis Jovis, which meant the blood of Jupiter. Jupiter is the ancient Roman god equivalent to the ancient Greek god Zeus, so was a very important god. Sangiovese grape grows in most of our country and is the same grape that makes the Sangiovese. Salute! One of the signature recipes that you'll taste at Ristorante Spirito di Vino, it's called the Pork Stew at Gagliomazzo style. Who was Gagliomazzo? Julius Caesar's personal chef. So this is supposed to be one of his favorite dishes. How is it prepared? Slowly cooked from three to four hours in a sauce that has honey, apple, Provencal Burke potato starch, extra virgin olive oil, and black pepper. Buon appetito! Welcome to the next stop and welcome to an institution of Trastevere, Bisco Tificio Innocenti. This is a cookie factory which has been here for four generations. In fact, these guys have won a prize. 80 years of successful business, especially when the mayor comes and gives you a prize. The lovely lady that owns it now, Stefania, has prepared for you two cookies to try. One is a shortbread dipped in dark chocolate and the other one has a very funny italian name. They're called Brutti Ma Buoni, which means ugly but good. Andiamo! Okay, here is the shortbread dipped in dark chocolate and the hazelnut meringues, the ugly but good. Inside they're made with hazelnut, the white of the egg, and sugar. For the shortbread, she also prepares the chocolate, which is also dairy-free. She has a policy, we do not use animal fat, so that's her policy. None of her cookies are made with butter. Welcome to the next stop and welcome to Orcineria Iacozilli. Another family-owned business. In fact, last year those guys celebrated 100 years of successful business. But let me take you inside so you can meet the owner, Piero, and his son Federico. Andiamo! What is porchetta? Porchetta is a deboned piece of pork loin seasoned by Piero with fennel seeds, rosemary, black pepper, salt, a touch of garlic, and sage leaves. Slowly roasted up to eight hours so that the fat melts down and the outside of the skin stays nice and crispy. There's already a big queue outside. Welcome to the next stop and welcome to the house Suppli. Suppli is spelled S-U-P-P-L-I. Suppli comes from the French word suppli, which means surprise. Legend has it that in the beginning of the 1800s, the French soldiers didn't expect what they found inside. It's high quality risotto rice cooked in a ragu sauce, filled inside with a piece of fresh mozzarella cheese dipped in breadcrumbs, deeply fried in sunflower oil. The full name of suppli in Rome is telephone suppli because when it's freshly prepared, it makes a telephone wire with the mozzarella cheese. Andiamo! Don't mistake suppli with arancini. Arancini are Sicilian and they were made in a different way. So if you go to Sicily, you only ask for arancini. If you come to Rome, only ask for suppli. Why? There's no national food in Italy, local food, so it depends where you are. Welcome to the next stop and welcome to Peppo. We couldn't let you go without trying some delicious pasta. So here we have spaghettoni cacio e pepe. Cacio is a dialect word for cheese. What type of cheese? Pecorino romano. Pecorino romano is a sheep based cheese, locally produced, creamy with a salty flavor. Before you eat the cacio e pepe, you need to mix it. And of course, you gotta eat it while it's hot. Otherwise, the cheese becomes hard. You're gonna be tasting the most delicious Amatriciana. Amatrice is a town in the north of Rome where they cure the meat inside, the guanciale. Guancia means chicken in Italian. Inside the Amatriciana, four ingredients, tomato sauce, pecorino romano cheese, guanciale, and black pepper. Welcome to the last stop and welcome to Vata Morgana, natural homemade gelato. Here, you can choose two flavors, cappuccino and whenever you have your gelato, I'm gonna teach you how do you spot the good one and avoid the bad one just by looking at the gelato. Andiamo! So here we have one of my favorite flavors, cheesecake and blueberry, and the princess kiss, which is one of the best selling. It's made with hazelnut and chocolate sauce. But how do you spot the good gelato? Just two rules to keep in mind. First rule, containers. Containers of a good gelato are flat. Sometimes you get them out of a lid so you can't even see the gelato. When you see the big amounts, what are they trying to do? Impress you. So the gelato grows up in the air, goes down in the evening, so you're partially paying for it literally. Look for these three flavors of gelato. Banana flavored gelato should be off-white and no yellow. Why? Because we don't eat the peel. Pistachio is an earthly dull color. Mint is made with extract of mint, which is lightly colored green and not glowing in the dark. If you enter a gelateria with too many flavors, they cannot possibly be homemade and industrially produced. If you find one of the flavors with a funny color like a blue gelato, the one is fake, they're all gonna be like it. Because they're not gonna make one fake and the other real. What is the main difference between ice cream and gelato? Ice cream is made with cream and gelato, most of the time, is made with milk. For more tips on Italian food, join us on an Eating Europe tour.