Rome has four classic pastas, and they are all variations on a single idea: a hard, salty cheese, black pepper, a cured pork cheek, and the water the pasta cooked in. Everything else is a mistake. Once you know the four, you can read any Roman menu.
Cacio e pepe
Pecorino romano, black pepper and pasta water. That is all. It is the simplest and the hardest, because without an egg or a pan of fat to help, the cheese has to melt into a cream on its own. A good one is glossy and clings to the spaghetti. A bad one is clumpy and dry.
Gricia
Take cacio e pepe and add guanciale, the cured pork cheek. The fat from the guanciale gives the sauce its body. It is sometimes called the grandfather of carbonara and amatriciana, because it is what both were built on.
Carbonara
Guanciale, egg, pecorino and black pepper. No cream. The egg and the cheese make the sauce, cooked only by the heat of the pasta, and a good carbonara is yellow, silky and not scrambled. If a menu lists cream, onion or garlic, you are not in a Roman kitchen.
Amatriciana
Guanciale, pecorino and tomato, with a little chilli. It is gricia with tomatoes added. It comes from the town of Amatrice, in the hills north-east of Rome, and is traditionally eaten with bucatini or spaghetti.
How to order
- Ask what the house does best. The answer is usually the one they cook most.
- Do not ask for cream, chicken or extra cheese on top. It will not insult anyone, but you will learn more by trying it as it comes.
- Share a first course if you are ordering more than one, because the portions are generous.
- Order pasta as a first course, not a main. The second course is meat or fish, and the vegetables are ordered separately.
Where to eat them
For the full tradition of the cheaper cuts, including the offal dishes Testaccio is known for, we like the restaurant below. For a small trattoria in Trastevere, we like the second. Check the notes beside each before you plan around them.
Or learn to make them. Our Testaccio class starts at the market and ends at one long table, and it teaches the one technique that makes cacio e pepe work.
