Restaurant Review: Ristorante Antico Carlone

Two Saturdays ago for lunch, I got to try a wonderful little restaurant called Ristorante Antico Carlone.  It’s in Trastevere which is a lovely part of Rome on the other side of the river. The restaurant is a little out of the way and a little hard to find but it is authentically Roman.  My friend’s father treated us and it was a really great afternoon of food and conversation.

The restaurant was small and quaint and once lunch got rolling it was quite bustling with sounds and smells.  Our waiter (and quite possibly the owner) was very friendly and I thought quite funny… but also quite slow. It’s a good thing that we weren’t in a hurry (honestly when eating in Italy, it’s best never to be in a hurry, because inevitably the waiters will take their time).

When we sat down we only one menu so I asked for another. Our waiter brought exactly one another menu…  I was amused and a little perplexed. Next time I’ll just have to be more specific with my Italian. Honestly, I’m not sure if it was a linguistic issue on my part or a logic issue on his part. Either way I thought it was kind of funny. 

In any case, on to the food!!

Endira ordered “carciofi alla giudea” for us to share. They are a specialty in Rome that originally

Sorry, not the best picture. It was prettier in person.

stemmed from the Jewish Ghettos hence the name alla giudea. I love artichokes prepared most ways and these were no different. They were quite delicious. These artichokes were on the smaller side and fried whole, stem and all. The looked beautiful on the plate, like roses just in bloom.  The nice thing about these artichokes is that you can literally eat the whole of it. It’s not as time consuming as the artichokes that I’ve always made where you can only eat part of each leaf and then have a plate full of the remaining carcasses. I ate every last bit, stem and all.  The leaves were crisp with a hint of salt while the heart was soft with a bit of the artichoke’s natural sweetness.  I could eat ten of them… In fact, I may very well do that at some point, if I ever learn how to make them at home. 

I also tried cicoria or chicory for the first (I’m writing up a blog about it as we speak!). It was delicious. Cicoria is a wonderful Roman specialty that I had never seen before even when living in Italy. It’s similar to spinach but with a greater depth of flavor and a hint of bitterness. In Rome it is usually boiled briefly and then sautéed in oil with garlic, salt and occasionally red pepper flakes.  This particular chicory was pretty bitter but I liked it, even though it didn’t include red pepper flakes. Since then, I’ve tried more chicory where the bitterness has been less present. 

mmm Cacio e Pepe

For my main course, I tried the Cacio e Pepe, another Roman specialty. It used Tonnarelli  which is a thicker noodle similar to spaghetti found in Rome. Cacio e Pepe itself is a super simple dish but amazingly tasty dish.  It is pasta with lots of pepper and Cacio a type of pecorino cheese.  The cheese melts down and coats the noodle entirely. I had tried it once before in NYC at a restaurant called Cacio e Pepe down near the village.  At this restaurant I really enjoyed the hardiness of the tonnarelli  and the bold flavor of the cacio. The flavors were really well balanced with just the right amount of bite.

Endira and her father both got meat seconds and those als looked delicious. I took a bite of Endira’s veal scaloppini and it was quite tender in a lovely lemon sauce.  Our only complaint was how long it took to arrive. The veal arrived at least 15 minutes after everything else hit the table. In theory, this was because it takes a while to cook, but I’m more inclined to think that our waiter forgot to put the order in.

Overall I liked the restaurant  and I think I’ll definitely go again to try some of the house specialties which seemed really interesting and unique.