Ristorante Maccheroni, Rome, Italy

On our way to Ristorante Maccheroni, we were walking around like lost tourists, asking for directions with map in hand. But, we finally prevailed and it happened to be a restaurant we passed a few times. You would think a restaurant mentioned in various guide books would invest in some kind of signage.

We started off with an app and 2 primis. We didn't have many meals left in Rome and we had yet to try the Carciofo alla Romana, artichokes roman style. So we thought, get it now or risk never having the chance to. The roman style artichoke is cooked with white wine, garlic, parsley and mint. It was good.. definitely glad we got this.

The Ravioli ai Fiori di Zucca (ravioli with a creamy zucchini flower sauce), was a bit heavy with all that cheese and cream, but Jason enjoyed it a lot.


I was looking forward to trying a carbonara, one of my favorite pasta dishes, in Rome and went with the Tonarelli alla Carbonara. Their tonarelli was an egg based pasta which was cooked with bacon, egg and goat cheese. Good, but it lacked depth. Maybe because of the missing Parmigiano-Reggiano. A little disappointing because I wanted to be blown away. The one I made at home (thanks to Batali's awesome recipe) was better than this.


We were stuffed, but we knew our secondis were out on it's way so we had to some how miraculously make room for them.

Jason went against his gut and ordered the Chicken Cacciatora because of the favorable reviews he read about this dish and our waiter telling us this was their specialty. It was cooked in a slightly spicy white wine, rosemary and garlic. The flavor was nice, but it really doesn't matter when the chicken is dry and overcooked. Which was what happened with this dish. Jason should've listened to his gut.


I had the Trippa alla Romana which was cooked in tomato sauce, mint and goat cheese. I love tripe. And again, I was hoping to have the best tripe I ever had, but sadly, not so. Don't get me wrong, this dish was actually pretty good, but I've had my share of amazing tripe dishes. (Batali's tripe dish at Babbo and Cosentino's at Incanto are the bomb.)


All in all, this place was very average. Go if you're looking for big portions, good value and average food. But this isn't the place to go to taste what Rome has to offer.


Ristorante Maccheroni
Piazza delle coppelle, 44
00185 Roma, ITALIA tel. +39 06 68307895