Ristorante Pecorino — Restaurant in Rome

We've eaten here before for dinner a few years back, having been brought here by an uncle who was very familiar with Rome. He said this place serves very authentic Roman food and we were very happy the last time we were there. So this time around, when we wanted to visit Testaccio market and the Protestant Cemetery, it was a no-brainer to plan our lunch here as well.

We opted to eat outside (a bit dark inside) on the sidewalk and that was fine. A bit noisy at times but the food was perfect for a sidewalk lunch :-)

We started with Artichoke Roman style as well as fried baby artichokes - both excellent. So good that my wife opted for a 2nd artichoke roman style just for herself...lots of olive oil to soak up the bread!

I had trippa (tripe) Roman style and this place cooks it perfectly - no smell, tender and balanced perfectly with the tomato sauce and cheese. I've had it in a couple of other Italian cities but the Roman version stands out. And with how well it's cooked here, I'm happy to come back for another round. But the dish was large and more than sufficient for lunch, especially with a beer to go with it.

My daughter's spaghetti vongole was also very well done. Just look at the pictures! And we all shared a dish of mixed wild mushrooms (which was actually the most expensive dish we had). That was excellent - the mushrooms in olive oil had a variety of flavour including quite a meaty one from the porcini.

We had tiramisu for dessert - interesting but not as outstanding as the other dishes. But together with three macchiatos to end the meal and we were happily stuffed and energized for a visit to...

Really enjoyed our time here at pecorino. We ordered amatriciana and cacio and pepe. Both were really good although we would have appreciated a bit more sauce on the cacio and pepe. Our second courses were abbacchio a scottadito (really good but would have loved to see have more meat), saltimbocca alla romana (really nice) and cotoletta di scottadito (really good but I felt the breading overpowered the taste of the lamb. As a side we had carciofi alla giudia. These were good although a bit oily. Being fried that's to be expected but I had better here in Rome.

For dessert we had the semifreddo allo zabaione and crostata with apples and cinnamon. Both were good.

Overall we had a really good experience and would recommend to anyone wanting to experience authentic Roman cuisine...

We arrived at the restaurant around 8:30 pm on a Thursday, it was raining and the restaurant had only one customer sitting at a solitary table. We said good night and the receptionist responded with annoyance. I asked if there was a table for two and he asked if I had made a reservation, I replied that I had not and he made a dismissive gesture with his shoulders.

We went to eat at a nearby restaurant, which was crowded and had wonderful food. On the way back we saw that the restaurant was still empty and we had a good laugh. As tourists, we encountered several friendly and receptive Italians, unfortunately this was not the case with this gentleman, clearly bitter and proud of his own decadence, a shame, the food seens to be good reading the...