Alfredo alla Scrofa Restaurant — Restaurant in Rome

A must-do “when in Rome” restaurant. Highly recommended. Even my most foodie of foodie friends strongly suggest it for the reason it delivers the experience and memory. Let’s start with the objections: Is it the best meal you will have in Rome? Not if your other choices are carefully chosen. Is it the quaintest atmosphere? Not that either. But it is simply not to be missed. Repeat: Do not skip the chance to eat at the restaurant eponymous with Fettucine Alfredo. For the rest of your life, whenever you have the dish, you can say/think/know you at the original. Make no mistake, the fettuccine is quite good. The best you will ever have? That’s an unfair question since other restaurants cheat on the recipe. For authentic, it does not disappoint. For our family, fettucine Alfreo simply is not our favorite pasta dish, so we find it difficult to give it 5 stars compared to perhaps having amazing pest (the family favorite) some place else. We can say the starters and other courses were very good and perhaps other pasta dishes might have been too but we all had the fettuccine, as should you. The service was quite good. Fast and attentive. A social callout to the sommelier who, after hearing what kind of wine we like (we find the Italian wine lists impossible to navigate), he brought out 3 selections, explained and compared them, including pricing, a practice we now consider to be a best practice we wish other restaurants would employ. Each wine was very good, which we can say since we ended up drinking all three over the course of the evening. None were cheap wines, and dinner was the most expensive of our three meals in Rome, but years from now we will not remember the price, only the experience, and on that measure, Alfredo’s delivers. A few tips: Dine inside. Yes there is a lovely patio but better to have the experience as it was meant to be surrounded by the picture of presidents and movie stars (we could care less who was in the pictures, but it is the authentic experience). Make a reservation! The line for walk-ins was LONG. We had a reservation and were seated instantly. Show the restaurant, its history, and the other patrons some respect and dress nicely. No you need not dress up (we wore slacks and collared shirts, ladies wore summer dresses) but have some dignity not to be in a t-shirt and flip flops. We saw the attire of folks in line and wondered if they knew where they were dining? Net net, ignore any of the negative reviews and go for making a lifelong experience. You will not be disappointed. Now, which one of you will get the “serving plate” is the...

I visited this restaurant during my first day in Rome. Given that they advertise themselves as the birthplace of fettuccine Alfredo, my family and I had high expectations. I made reservations 3 months in advance as they had very few timeslots left. This further increased our expectations.

Unfortunately, the food was extremely disappointing. To start, we ordered the cheese tasting board and eggplant parmigiana. The cheese tasting board was nothing special, however, the sweet onions made it slightly more enjoyable. The eggplant parmigiana lacked flavour and tasted like canned tomato sauce. On top of that, the portion size was much smaller than the price that you are paying for. We were served a focaccia bread basket without the usual Italian condiments such as olive oil or balsamic vinegar. It was brought to our table without being offered as an option, and only later did we realize it has been added to our bill. The bread itself was extremely hard and almost stale. While focaccia is usually a reliable staple, the one served to us was noticeably stale and quite hard - to the point that it was difficult to bite into without scraping the roof of my mouth.

For our mains, we ordered the fettuccine alfredo with truffle (I do not recommend, especially because the truffle mushrooms added 25 euros to our bill) and the spaghettone all'Arrabbiata. The server served the fettuccine alfredo right at the table, which was one of the few decent things at this restaurant. We appreciated the history behind how the dish was created but the overall flavour was severely lacking. We needed to add salt and pepper to our dish, despite being doused in cream and cheese. I noticed that the owners of this restaurant responded to previous negative reviews assuring the high quality of their ingredients. I have no doubt that their ingredients are locally sourced and are of great quality, but the dish was not representative of that. I have tasted much better elsewhere as this dish was extremely underwhelming.

Overall, the service was mediocre. We ordered one sprite that took nearly 30 minutes to be brought out. Our food also took close to 45 minutes-1 hour to be brought out. We went on a weeknight, so it was not that busy either - which does not explain the long wait. The staff openly requested a tip at the end of the meal, so we felt obligated to provide one despite not feeling comfortable doing so.

Overall, I do not recommend you visit this restaurant. Instead trust Google reviews, as we wish we had trusted the reviews prior...

Disclaimer: Me and my wife already knew it was a tourist trap. But still, we wanted to know if the hype of the Alfredo had a good reason to exist.

Getting there we were well welcomed by the host. The ambiance is neat and clean. Lives up to the classic "old italian restaurant" vibe it has (and owns up to it).

The service, in a first glance, was quite nice and welcoming. We had problems later on.

We ordered two glasses of white wine (the restaurant's Frascati), the Alfredo and a Pici with beef and pork ragú. The wine was really nice (It's more on the drier side).

Now to the main problem: the food. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It was mediocre. This in itself isn't a problem. But, when you are paying 20€+ a plate in Rome, you should expect a great meal. We got the most distant thing from that. For a comparison basis, you can find great restaurants serving great pasta for 12-16€ a plate.

The Alfredo is OK. But it takes a lot of processes to literally taste just like cheese. Don't get me wrong, great cheese and the overall texture is great. But that's it. It doesn't taste like a 26€ dish. Especially considering that for this price you can get pasta with fresh truffles and truffle cream in other restaurants for instance.

Now the Pici with Ragú is bland, almost tasteless. This is impressive considering it should be Beef and Pork meat combined. It doesn't taste like anything and the beef is clearly low quality. You get that from taste and from the fact I ate a nerve, even though it was grounded. For its price point, it is definetly one to avoid.

After we ate we were frustrated because the cost/ quality doesn't pay off. Especially for Rome standards.

Now at the end we asked for the check and I went to the toilets. Thought my wife would pay. The check came and was placed on my side of the table and the waiter left. Almost as if my wife didn't exist or didn't clearly have a wallet with her (which she had). So she had to call and wait for another person to come, since the waiter had left.

That sums it up. I would only go I if I REALLY wanted to try the Alfredo pasta. But, to be honest, you can find better and cheaper food in a lot of...