20 years after our honeymoon in Italy, my wife and I + our 15yo / 12yo sons will be heading back! Given flight prices and timing, we’re only hitting Rome and Florence with a couple day trips planned. I’ve gone through the various threads and pulled together a meal itinerary and wanted to sanity check if there are any glaring inclusions (i.e. DON’T GO THERE) or exclusions (i.e. DON’T MISS IT)!
For context, everyone in the family loves Italian food, my wife is a pasta fiend. We tend to prefer low-key, more lively but not packed / crazy scenes versus high-end, white table cloth dining. Not that we’re against the latter, but we just like to chill with good food. We tend to prefer lighter food, i.e. less creamy preps but are fine with nicely fried items.
All that said, here’s what we have in mind. None of this is set in stone, except for a couple sentimental favorites (which I’ll note.) Please fire away with thoughts!
Rome:
Arrival Day: Dinner @ Perilli
Day 1: Lunch @ Tram Tram, Dinner @ Trattoria De Cesare
Day 2: Lunch @ TBD (thinking Mercato Centrale), Dinner @ Roscioli
Day 3: Lunch @ Emma, Dinner @ Trattoria Monti
Day 4: Lunch @ Enoteca Pitti Gola
Florence:
Arrival Day: Dinner @ Tamero
Day 1: Lunch @ Il Santo Bevitore, Dinner @ Trattoria 4 Leoni (sentimental value)
Day 2: Lunch @ Da Cesari in Bologna, Dinner @ Aroma
Day 3: Lunch @ TBD (thinking family cooking class), Dinner @ Trattoria Casalinga (sentimental value)
Day 4: Lunch @ Tamero (we love pasta and this place seems great, so our only repeat…), Dinner @ Trattoria Cammillo
We also love Gelato and are thinking Carapina in Rome and Carabe, My Sugar and Santa Trinita in Florence.
Just a few random thoughts: You have two hungry boys, but this looks like too much food! you want to each order at least a couple of dishes, even if its just a light second course to justify your seat in the restaurant given the current fragile economy. And at a place like Cesare, you will want to try everything, I assure you. Also, Pizza is an evening, not lunch meal in Italy, so you might want to switch Emma to an evening time. Finally, reserve whenever you can, as far ahead as you can, some of these places have become very difficult to get into.
Am with @JenKalb on this. If you are in Rome on a Sunday, the lunch at Cesare is really an excellent time, and their fried offerings (as well as their pastas) are excellent. A late 9:30 or 10 pizza at Emma after a Sunday lunch would be ideal, as you really don’t have to order extra courses besides the pizza, unless you are hungry at that point. Sounds like a great trip!
We usually do a full sit down lunch and go light at supper. To us it fits in better with a day of touring to get a solid relaxing break in the middle of the day, especially if it’s hot. Also there is much less of a crunch of tourist reservations at noon then in the evening. You’re more likely to see in my experience together table and to see Romans/ Italians at the other tables.
Larger meal at midday is also more of the traditional Italian pattern then in the US. But if that doesn’t fit with your lifestyle there’s plenty of light food you can eat at lunch time too.
Looks like a great set of restaurants, would be very similar to my list if going this summer.
Love Perilli, and Camillo (we were there 20 yrs ago…) , and Enoteca Pitti Gola, wow! Some overlap in Roscoli and Emma if you go beyond pizza but you probably know that.
Thanks! This thread was super helpful. FWIW, in case helpful in the future for others, here’s what we ended up changing:
a few folks wondered whether all the meals would be too much food, but rather than eliminate meals, we substituted in a few seafood places that sounded amazing and offer up lighter fare
La Gensola was one of the seafood places that seemed to be a can’t mass and we subbed it out for Tram Tram which was probably the most divisive restaurant we had on the original list.
We’re gonna do Emma for lunch and Roscioli for dinner, as the kids love Pizza and while it’s a dinner thing for Italians, it felt like a somewhat lighter meal we could do for lunch to carbo load for a long day of walking!
Rather than hit both Mercato Centrale’s, we subbed the MC in Rome out for Testaccio given both MC’s have significant overlap in food vendors
In another attempt to do more seafood - we subbed in Il Tempio Di Iside for Trattoria Monti
Rather than double up on Tamero, although my wife is a pasta fiend, we subbed out the dinner at Tamero for Antico Bottaio which again got rave reviews
I am so excited… cannot wait to see Italy again. Even just clicking on menus and seeing italian words has me salivating, lol.
So, after all that planning… my son’s passport renewal came a day too late and we had to cancel our trip We’re going to try again next year. While bummed, I think we’re also secretly glad we didn’t have to make the 17 hour trip to get there (making lemonade out of lemons.) Thanks all for the suggestions and the good news is I think I can just replicate my itinerary next time we plan to go!
We’re going to try again next year. While bummed, I think we’re also secretly glad we didn’t have to make the 17 hour trip to get there (making lemonade out of lemons.) Thanks all for the suggestions and the good news is I think I can just replicate my itinerary next time we plan to go!