Roma Eats: La Carbonara

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When we got to Rome, Ryan looked up some nearby restaurants where we could have lunch. He found La Carbonara, open since 1906, which exceeded all of our expectations.

La Carbonara is a small, family-run restaurant just an easy walk from the Roma Termini.

La Carbonara had a great casual vibe, with scribbles on the walls in all sorts of languages and bottles of wine on various shelves. They have lunch hours of 12:30-2 pm, and we got there just at 1:45, but the family allowed us in to have lunch. The menu was only in Italian, so we were lucky we had spent the past several days brushing up on our Italian so we could order. Ryan ordered a chicken dish, but we found my pasta to be the star of the meal.

When I walked to the bathroom to wash my hands, I passed by a counter outside the kitchen where a whole basket of porcini mushrooms was just sitting there. I could smell the meaty, umami mushrooms before they were even prepared!

It doesn’t look like much, but I ordered the spaghetti with pistachio pesto and tomatoes. I couldn’t decide between this dish and another pasta, so I asked our waiter who, without any hesitation, told me to order the pistachio pesto. I had never tasted this kind of pesto before, but the flavour was spectacular and I couldn’t get enough! The pasta itself, obviously, was homemade as well.

I was so impressed by this dish that when my parents visited Rome a few months later, I insisted they eat at La Carbonara and I insisted they order this dish. My dad, then, was so impressed he told someone else they had to order this dish when they went to Rome!

Just as we finished our lunch around 3pm, we passed by the whole family having their post-rush lunch together, with big bowls of delicious-looking food and bottles of wine.

Visit La Carbonara:

Via Panisperna 214

00184

Roma, Italy