Pastorie — Restaurant in Rome

I would recommend Pastorie highly. It's a brand new restaurant in Pigneto specializing in the food of Abruzzo related to the transumanza – the annual journey taken by shepherds and their sheep, up to the mountains for the spring and summer, then back down again to Puglia in the fall. So it’s inspired by poor people’s food, “cucina povera”, but takes this to a high level. Some highlights: tartare of lamb from the mountains (agnello appennico crudo). This was served on in small pieces versus finely chopped as you usually see it, with a salty salsa from bitter herbs. Very nice contrast in flavours. Radicchio two ways - grilled with bitter herbs from the mountain, with walnuts and then a long fresh radicchio leaf on top. Vivid flavours, with the bitterness of the greens softened by a bit of onion. I had these with a sour beer from Opperbacco (an excellent brewery in Abruzzo) called Abruxensis Acida (I think Abruxensis is Latin for Abruzzo). A classic sour beer that went well with just about anything. Next came the alicette- these are white anchivies pan fried with parsley. Next was a lovely soup – small pieces of flat pasta in an intensely flavoured clam broth, with very small, unusual chickpeas and bitter herbs. An additional flavour comes from precious rare saffron grown in Abruzzo. You had a sense of how these simple ingredients had given sustenance to the shepherds, who perhaps had exchanged a sheep for some clams and other seafood. I had this soup with a nice white wine, a pecorino from Tiberio. Finally I had Scamorza cheese grilled with porcini mushrooms and black truffles. The flavours combined beautifully. Finished the meal with a semifreddo. All in all, a lovely place with a...

Rustic-modern esthetic inside, and very comfortable sidewalk seating where we had our dinner.

For appetizers we tried their bruschetta, which ended up being a thick slice of sourdough piled high with slow cooked and delicious lamb, as well as a polenta topped with some teeny-tiny clams.

Following this we had pasta e fagiole, a hearty stew of pasta and beans with a deliciously viscous broth, seasoned with fresh herbs.

This was followed by a house-made aneletti pasta, that had windeful texture and was served in a flavourful tomato sauce.

We also tried their grilled spicy spaghetti, which was both very spicy and very Smokey from the grill. The grilling gave the spag a crunchy and charred texture and flavour, far from the usual. Very impressive for such a simple looking dish.

For secondi we had some grilled lamb skewers and a small lamb steak served with a cheese sauce. The skewers were tasty but quite small (although reasonable for the price), and the steak was very nicely cooked.

Dessert they called a pizza… was a cake with 5 differently flavoured layers.

Staff were busy but friendly, and service was quite responsive.

Happy to try again on future trip : all the pasta sounded good, and if I had a bigger party, or a bigger belly, I would have ordered...

Are you kidding me? I can’t speak for the locals, but if you’re visiting Italy and hoping for authentic flavors, don’t waste your money here. The menu was extremely limited, and the spaghetti dishes were very disappointing—completely flavorless, undercooked, and served without any toppings at all.

We were seated outside under cover, but it was cold and rainy, and no one came to check on us the entire time. The server was rude—he handled the plates so aggressively it felt like he was about to smash them. The only thing that tasted decent was the lamb skewers, but even those were nothing special—just like any skewers you could find outside of Italy. Totally...