La Fraschetta Romanesca — Restaurant in Rome

PIZZA PURGATORY I always take everything with a pinch of salt on Trip Advisor, as it seems that restaurants are often praised or trashed by those that either love or hate them. Unfortunately 'a pinch of salt' was much more than was needed to save this punishingly tasteless meal. Me and my girlfriend went in here as it looked like an authentic Italian restaurant: nice and busy, legs of ham, bits of cheese, bottles of wine. Upon entering we were taken to an empty, awkward dining room downstairs. The red wine tasted like rose and was cold. We joked they had been keeping it in fridge, but logic kicked in and we decided it was probably kept in some cool part of the cellar. The bruschetta was a bit bland. The carciofi Alla Romana was actually not bad. We ordered pizzas for main course. My girlfriend ordered a white vegetarian pizza but asked for it without cheese, and with tomato sauce. It's basically a normal (red) vegetarian pizza with no cheese. Not hard. They brought it without the sauce, just veg on a plain bit of bread. We asked for what was ordered with the sauce, and they spooned a couple of bits of tomato sauce on the the top. I ordered a buffalo mozzarella one - didn't have too much cheese. Both pizzas were BONE DRY and tasteless. We both ate less than half (I just picked the few bits of cheese off) and when they came to take the plates away, the waitress, placing one plate on the other, managed to get a dry crispy crunch from the remains. To add to this, we were charged £2.50 for what seemed to be tap water. Having visited the capuchin museum earlier in the day and seen the cilice and whip for self-flagellation, it was like we were paying penance for terrible some past sin. Oh and upon leaving, lo and behold, we see the red house win lurking...

Visiting Rome with my sisters and brother. This place was recommended by the staff at our hotel. We think that they must hate Americans. Very cramped restaurant with raw meat hanging from the ceiling. Not sure why we didn’t see this as a red flag. I don’t know many people who dine in meat lockers. My brother ordered a spicy pasta and he seemed to like it. My sisters and I decided to play it safe and order a traditional dish...fettuccine Alfredo with mushrooms. As soon as we got our dishes we knew something was wrong. It did not look appealing. Yellowish in color. We like our fettuccine a creamy white. My sisters took one bite and couldn’t eat anymore. I tried to choke a fair amount down and chase it with wine. The noodles tasted undercooked...the sauce was lacking and flavorless, and we weren’t sure if the mushrooms were edible. My sisters decided to play a game and try to see who could get the most fettuccine on the other’s plate to avoid eating their own. Very fun. Service, on the other hand, was pretty good. Since we were still hungry...we decided to walk a few blocks to a different restaurant. I immediately started having stomach pain and couldn’t even enjoy the tasteful meal. An eventful night for some tourists in Roma. We are still waiting to taste the food that will...

This place was highly recommended to us but our experience was less than amazing. Just to be clear, I think this place is good but our dishes were not to our standards. My pasta was undercooked, it was still grainy in the middle. We are from Canada and over there if you say something they will exchange the plate immediately - to be fair we decided not to say anything because we didn’t know how they deal with these situations, perhaps they would have replaced the dish but we didn’t want to get into an international incident :) We ordered the bruschetta and it was good and fresh, the fried zucchini blossom was also good but it was just thrown on a plate, it lacked plating…. The caccio e peppe was under seasoned. So all-in-all, lots of small details that could have made our experience better. The service was very nice, staff was very friendly. Food needs attention to detail. Edit Sept 4, 2024 *This is a reply to their reply: I know what “al dente”, your pasta was NOT al dente, it was undercooked. I didn’t want it well cooked I wanted it al dente which you didn’t do. I cut the pasta and I could see the white line of grain in the middle that shows an undercooked pasta. Maybe take the feedback and be better instead of justifying a poorly...