Carter Oblio — Restaurant in Rome

The restaurant itself was really beautiful, it looked straight out of a design magazine. It had high ceilings but felt cozy. We were warmly greeted at the door (do book ahead, I didn’t see any walk-ins) by some friendly servers. After having sat for a couple of minutes, we noticed a strange vibe, almost as if our servers were being strictly watched. We proceeded to order the 5-course menu, as everything looked delicious. They graciously took note of our food allergy and accommodated us accordingly.

Here’s a rundown of what we had: The “carrot carrot” starter was fine. It didn’t blow me away, as I’ve had a nice carrot soup before, but it was very well done and I enjoyed it. A large bread board with olive oil came (8 slices of bread for 2 people). The bread was wonderful, and we were hungry to start, so we ate too much of it. At this point we noticed that no one had come to take our wine/drink order, which was odd. Thankfully we flagged down the sommelier and we ordered an excellent orange wine. The “duck in a pond,” or duck soup, was lovely. A dashi broth with bitter leafy greens and two slices of duck, it tasted homey and comforting. It was a bit of a challenge to eat with a spoon, I almost wanted to ask for chopsticks. The “pizza style” ravioli were so good, so comforting, and so huge! These were essentially large pizza bites inside very thick dough. Delicious but a meal on its own. I was stuffed after eating 3 out of 4. Then came the pork cheek. It was slow-cooked to perfection and very flavourful. I couldn’t bring myself to finish it as I was so full of food, I was getting physically uncomfortable. I felt awful for leaving it on the plate, I hate to waste such a gorgeous piece of meat.

Dessert was a rum baba, another rich dish with loads of cream. I enjoyed 2 bites and couldn’t go further. I apologised to our server and asked for the bill, to which she responded there was another dessert coming! It was just a plate of petit fours, but I honestly couldn’t look at any more food, so I wish she would have listened when we asked for the bill. No one had offered us tea or coffee, and when I asked for some, she didn’t know what kind of tea was available (later confirming just black or green, no decaf or herbal options).

In conclusion, here’s a tip to anyone coming here: arrive hungry, especially if you are doing the 5-course tasting menu! I’m not sure if it’s because of our shellfish allergy, so our tasting menu maybe leaned more heavily on meat, which perhaps was more filling than usual.

The ambience was sort of tainted by our servers who already seemed under pressure, and then them not understanding why we couldn’t finish our meal. I felt like I had offended them. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy it, there really was just much more food than...

My wife and i selected Carter based on the reviews. We always look out for Michelin recommended restaurant while we travel. Before Rome, we were at Athens trying out the recommended Michelin restaurant, too. All good.

Carter is the 1st Michelin restaurant we tried at Rome. The ambience of the restaurant was fairly decorated.

Services rendered by the guys were good. They know what they are doing and serving. We ordered the tasting menu with 5 plates to be served. The 1st welcome dish was a shot glass combined with fried fish, and chef made vinegar. It was amazing! Follow by bread and Carrot Carrot Carrot, which is the 1st dish of the 5. That was when the taste turned around.

According to some reviews, Carrot Carrot is something that should not be missed. I had high expectations, but it came out without a punch to my taste. It's not a fantastic taste plate. However, I'm not saying it's not delicious. It just tastes fairly to me, personally.

Follow by soup, dumpling, and something i dont remember. I stopped eating after that without finishing the last dessert plate. It was disappointing. The taste is simple. The soup done by the chef at Carter was something similar to the one i tried at Athens. But Carter lost out so much with the taste and ingredients. The dumpling is the worst of all dishes served. It's too simple and no surprises at all. That's when i started asking my wife, did we entered the wrong Michelin recommended restaurant.

I went to quite a number of Michelin recommended restaurants worldwide from guide, 1star to 3star. This is the only one that I stopped before the dessert. Maybe the taste at Carter does not suit us. Seriously, I can't appreciate the taste prepared by the chef. I'm sorry. It was really bad.

I do appreciate the kindness from the restaurant. Think they prepared 1 more extra dish for us because they saw us not finishing since the dumpling. Even offered us to get something from the main menu, but we didn't take it. Thumbs up for the wonderful...

We are very impressed by both the knowledge and professionalism of the staffs, and the taste of the dishes!

It’s a restaurant that shares their passion of food, attention to details and of course, the skills of cooking.

Very nice ambience as well. We like their choice of interior colour palette and materials.

I will not be surprised if it gets a star very soon. And just some personal comments on the dishes we tried:

carrots: the chef should be proud! It brings out the most from the simplest. A truly humble yet sophisticated dish. duck: it’s a creative concept and a difficult dish. With a lot of ingredients assembled together, the taste feels balanced and in harmony. Personally, it can be less oily. And the dashi gets a bit salty towards the end which is very hard to avoid but it might be the room to improve. candies: good. It might be benefited with white sesame/tahini chickpea+hazelnut: good concept. (Similarly maybe you can have rice and pine nut/ Edamame and pistachios….)the taste is gentle, which might feel good as a start but for the sequence we had, it felt a bit weak. It might need a kick of a herb, a spice or a different kind of base ( like substituting milk with oat milk for coffee which brings a twist in taste) pork: might be better to add some white part of spring onion or roasted barley…need something sharp enough as a contrast. Otherwise it feels too heavy. corba rosa: it brings us to Southeast Asia. maybe try add ginkgo nut?

Overall, we are very glad that we came! And we will surely visit again when we are in Rome! All the food are well celebrated and it’s a very pleasant...