Cantina Cantarini — Restaurant in Rome

Spent two weeks on honeymoon in Italy, visiting places all over. This was our favorite place out of all the places we ate. The owner is friendly and the food is authentic. They were not generally open in the mornings, but, on the morning before we left Rome, we had walked by this restaurant and the owner came out and yelled for us. He offered us espressos and some blackberry tart for breakfast, free of charge.

I see some people complained about the food here, but this is definitely the real deal. Their specialty seems to be seafood. If you order a fish, you get the whole thing, head and tail included. The fish was fresh, lacking the distinct "fishy" taste that non-fresh fish has.

We were given complementary dishes of squid, fried and grilled, some was cold/raw? I am not a huge fan of squid, I just happen to like most grilled fish. We tried the squid and it was delicious... again, not "fishy" taste. This was definitely fresh.

The food here is a lot like if you go to a friend's house for dinner. You get their recipe, so it is conceivable some people might not actually like it. We never had anything here that we didn't like, but the food was certainly distinct in taste.

Finally, some complained about a higher priced menu for tourists. This definitely was not the case for us. We spoke very little Italian, and got the English menu. We once got the Italian menu as well, and there is no price difference. Regardless, the owner treated us, clear tourists, like family. Reading the other reviews here, it seems like he treats everyone like family.

I highly suggest this to anyone in the area. If you go for dinner, try to get there early, between 7 and 730, otherwise you might wait for a table, and service might be slower. No matter what, it...

Got in at 7:45 on a Saturday, not a person inside, sat down, and then the waiter took us to take a look at the fish and asked us what we're into. We selected and was happy for the experience. Then the 8:15 rush came in. It was lively and super local. Place is practically historical. Opened in 1903 and the photo you see is from 1923. Got a healthy portion of food to make us happy. Everything looked good too as we checked out what locals ordered at other tables. May want to make reservations (as all the locals did) or if you're a small group, you can probably get a seat with another foreign party... early. Takes credit including...

The first half of the week the menu is primarily meat dishes and the second half of the week the menu is seafood dishes.

During our stay in Rome we visited this restaurant twice and experienced both menus and both times were the best meals we had whilst in Rome.

It's frequented mainly by locals and the food is delicious. The staff are very friendly and attentive.

I particularly recommended the spinach and ricotta ravioli with butter and sage during the first half of the week and the calamari and shrimp during the second half of the week. Though everything we had was fantastic and i'm sure everything else that we didn't try is...