Il Tarallo — Restaurant in Rome

My husband and I ate here last year in October, and just knew we would be back. We are finally back in Rome and dined here on a Sunday night — the food, service, and atmosphere are AMAZING. We sat inside this year, which was lovely. Even when the tables fill up, it’s not overly loud. We ordered bruschette for antipasto, gricia for primi, and polpette ai funghi (a family recipe of the owner) for secondi. And of course ordered a bottle of wine - we tried the negroamaro salento based on recommendation and it was wonderful, a nice fuller bodied red without being overly dry. It paired well with our meal! Bruschette was perfect, it’s two good size pieces and perfect to share for two people. The gricia was unbelievable — the sauce was well balanced between the pecorino and pepper, and the guanciale was cooked to absolute perfection. The polpette were heavenly — you get three and they are slathered in a delicious mushroom sauce. We cleaned up both plates with our table bread at the end 🤤 We also tried the house dessert — they had several options, but we landed on tiramisu and it was so light and fluffy — an absolute perfect way to end the night!!

Service is sososo wonderful here, too. They do not invade your space while you’re eating, but are so incredibly attentive you can easily signal them over when you need something. For example, when we finished our meals they came buy to pick up our plates but gave us space to continue enjoying our wine. Then, when we were ready to ask for dessert we simply made eye contact with a little wave and she was immediately over to our table.

Such a lovely restaurant—we will be...

In a city where waiters will try to grab you off the street, tourist menus blare with stock images of lasagne and queues for nondescript restaurants around the block, finding somewhere that feels like a hidden gem can be difficult. Il Tarallo is just that - understated, just off the beaten track but with all the trappings of a great local restaurant.

We visited Rome 6 years ago and stumbled across Di Enzo when the queues weren’t such a thing. Returning to Rome we were chasing the same memories but quickly found that going back would require queuing longer than an the Apple Store on iPhone release day.

Il Tarallo hit all the high note that we were chasing - great food, romantic setting and friendly service. So nice we went there twice we had carbonara and the octopus - both were outstanding. The wine was also knock out.

At the end of it all, the bill didn’t deliver a knockout punch and was incredibly reasonable.

For those chasing a romanticised view of a Roman meal that they feel only exists in their mind’s eye in a city increasingly dominated by tourism -...

Had an overall good experience for dinner, to start service was good and the waitstaff are kind, friendly, attentive and speak multiple languages.

We really enjoyed the secondi of lamb with white wine sauce and the mussels with tomato, beans, and toasted bread. The mussels were fresh, the broth had a great flavor, and the portion was generous . The lamb was of good quality and the white wine sauce was simple but delicious and well balanced.

Points of improvement:

Lots of seafood dishes had cheese in them which I don’t think is generally accepted by Italians and probably wouldn’t work so well.

we didn’t like the swordfish and tomato pasta (we ordered it without cheese) it was very bland and the tomatoes didn’t have that much flavor (unlike the mussels’ tomato broth) it was also under salted and the portion was quite small.

The portion of bread didn’t come with olive oil but upon request I got some, the oil didn’t have that much flavor, Monini is much better for example.

Overall I would definitely come back for the quality of the service and the quality of...