﻿The restaurants of Rome are just as wonderful as the ancient historic sites of this great city. For
some people, the food is even more important. In this program, we're going to experience
three excellent places to eat: Cantina e Cucina near Piazza Navona, Maccheroni near the Pantheon
and Restaurant 34 near Piazza de Spagna and the Spanish Steps. But each of them is not
located right at those touristic landmarks, but instead on little side streets nearby,
where you're more likely to get an authentic restaurant with some locals among the customers.
“Tell me the name of the restaurant? Cantina e Cucina. Cantina e Cucina,
and what kind of food? Roman food. The best you can try. Yeah. Thank you. For example,
what? Carbonara, amatriciana, tonelli with cheese and pepper, the artichoke,
with a fried artichoke. It's amazing. Aha. And you're open all day? All day. Italia,
uno, Uno, uno, (laughter) All day, all year, All night. All the time. From seven in the morning to
midnight. Wow. Every day. Perfecto. And your name? Paula. Nice to meet you guys. OK” The party begins
out on the street, even before you set foot inside the restaurant. The manager comes out and starts
pouring prosecco, bubbly wine, free for everybody who's waiting to get into the restaurant.
The place is so popular, and they don't take reservations, so in the evening, there is usually
a short line, maybe 10 minutes, waiting to get inside. “OK, you're a busy restaurant, now? Yeah,
busy, busy, busy place. Best food in Italy, mate. Best food in Italy, yeah. Come to Australia. It's
even better, mate. And, uh. Dennis, Oh, oh, Okay, okay, okay. Come on, Dennis. I gotta….Okay.”
The friendly staff really sets the fun and casual feeling of the restaurant,
and they provide very efficient service The historic atmosphere of brick walls and vaulted
ceilings was a perfect setting for our group meal, and the food began arriving quickly.
So many foods to choose from. Homemade pastas, carbonara, ravioli, amatriciana, lasagna, and lots
of different salads. Or you can get a pizza, and meats like saltimbocca, meatballs, beef entrecote,
or sliced chicken. How about bruschetta or grilled vegetables? And then save a little room for
dessert. Have fun with getting spoiled by so many choices that will satisfy your palate. And you can
wash it all down with the excellent variety from the cellar wine collection, or cocktails prepared
by the bartender. This meal was a special occasion for my group from Hawaii, because we had
just completed a long trip, starting in Barcelona and traveling through the south of France, and
all the way down through the Italian Riviera to Rome, nearly three weeks, traveling by train and
walking around and seeing so many wonderful sights in the towns of Europe. We have many
videos about those places you can find in our collection, including Avignon, Nice, Arles,
Cinque Terre and a lot more. We enjoyed many great meals on that trip, and this was one of the best.
The special atmosphere of Cantina e Cucina turned this into a A Grand Final of our Europe tour.
If you show up for dinner and there's a line waiting to get in, it would be well worth it to
join the line, wait around a little bit, have some prosecco maybe, and then get into the restaurant
for a super meal. Or if you come earlier in the day, you'll find it can be quite empty, especially
if you're here at 11:00 in the morning. They're open, they're serving lunch, or a little bit later
in the afternoon it starts to get busy, but not really, packed until the evening dinner hour.
They're located on Villa Del Governor Vecchio, which is one of the great streets in Rome for
dining, whether it's outdoors at a tourist table or indoors at one of these many restaurants,
shopping, taking a stroll on the cobble lane and doing some people-watching
Just one of my favorite streets of Europe. From the Cantina, we're walking a few blocks
beyond the Pantheon to Restaurant Maccharoni, and then we'll finish up at Restaurant 34.
This street leading to our restaurant has many touristic outdoor restaurants that you
might want to avoid, even though a host will try and lure you in.
Instead, keep walking a few minutes, then go around the corner and into this magical world
of Piazza de la Copelle, a small, quiet space, off the beaten track with several excellent
restaurants. The pasta is fresh, sometimes a little spicy. And so are the waiters. Hello. Hi,
my name is Luciano. This is Maccheroni restaurant, the best in Rome. And the best pasta that we have
are amatriciana, gricia, carbonara, cacio peperino, fetucine with
black truffles (Waiter grunts) “Melanzane, eggplant parmigiana. Oh, okay.”
Some dishes get their final preparation for you right at the table. The restaurant is quite large
with several rooms on the main floor, all of that outdoor seating, and there's a lower level with
historic brick arches. With tables spread out enough, you don't feel crowded.
Here's that fettuccine with black truffles, and they keep the sauce rather plain to bring out
the flavor of the truffle. The restaurant has an open kitchen, so that it's easy to
watch the chefs doing their magic inside. And you'll notice some interesting things about
the way the pasta is prepared, perhaps a little different than the way you do things at home.
So, let's observe and pick up a few professional cooking tips. Pour lots of olive oil. The main
technique is to saute the pasta in the sauce in a skillet over the flame and keep it moving,
stir it up and flip it around. When you're boiling the pasta, you do not want to completely cook it,
because you'll be finishing it off in the skillet so that it comes out al dente, nice and firm.
By sautéing the pasta together with the sauce over the heat, the elements combine with each
other and enrich the flavor. And you're not just stirring. It's more of a two-fisted
athletic operation where you're really shaking it up, beating those flavors together.
The timing is important, orchestrated by the maestro. Chef lays out the hot pasta. The
waiters come over and put final touches on and get ready to deliver it straight to the table,
with express service. So if you're sitting near the kitchen, it only takes one minute from frying
pan to table. This traditional cooking procedure is quite a bit different than what many people at
home might be doing when they make spaghetti, in which they boil the noodle, prepare the sauce in
a different pan, put the spaghetti on a plate, and then just pour the sauce on top of the spaghetti.
That's pretty normal in many households, but it's not the way it's done in the Italian kitchen.
It seems like every dish in a quality restaurant is a work of art that you can look at, and smell,
and then devour with gusto. Especially at a restaurant like Maccheroni. Now, we've walked
another kilometer over to the neighborhood known as Spagna, famous for the nearby Spanish Steps.
There are many restaurants here, but some of them are just mediocre places for tourists
where you'll see waiters out front, so eager for customers, they're trying to wave you in.
But still, this is a wonderful neighborhood for strolling. And we're on one of my favorite
streets, the Villa Della Croce at night, after a light rain has stopped, the cobblestones are
glistening in the light. Truly a wonderful experience to stroll along these streets.
And just around the corner on Villa Mario de 'Fiori, we reach Restaurant 34, a traditional,
authentic ristorante. I've eaten here many times, going back decades,
and it's always been a wonderful meal. “Welcome in the restaurant. This restaurant, Trenta Quatro,
is one of the oldest restaurants in Rome. It's a very typical Italian food, very good food,
traditional food. We use very good ingredients. Beautiful restaurant in the heart of Rome. We
are here from 1968. I am third generation and it's my family, from my grandmother,
my uncle, me and my brother. We serve many dish of the tradition of the city of Rome. So lamb,
the tripe, the carbonara, amatriciana, many, many plates of our tradition,
and we serve, too, many dish of Italian tradition. So from the north, from the south,
we have many different choices. Fresh pasta. Fresh pasta, always. A lot of fresh pasta. Very good a
list of wine, of course, all Italian wines from the north to the south. And the house wine is very
good. House wine is good. Not expensive. It's not as much expensive, it is very good, to be house
wine, of course. We are always here, from morning till night.” The staff takes a personal interest
in how the dining room is functioning, spending time with the customers to get some feedback.
In closing, let me offer two of my favorite restaurant tips. Now, this has nothing to do
specifically with Restaurant 34. Just in general, when you're looking to pick a restaurant to sit
down in, go inside and have a look at the tables and see is there food on the tables? If everybody
is sitting there waiting for food, then turn around and leave because the service is going
to be very slow. Tip number two, ask for the check early and often. Don't wait until you've finished
your meal because then it might be hard to find the waiter. They get busy later in the evening.
Just tell them when they've delivered your final dish, you want the check now please,
prego, please. And you might have to remind them a few times. And then when they bring the check,
see if you can pay it right away. And that way, when you're finished eating, you can get up and
leave. You're done. Otherwise, you might be sitting around for ten or 20 minutes waiting
for that whole process to play out at the end of a long day, when you're already tired and want
to get back to the hotel and go to sleep. Or maybe you want to squeeze in a little bit of last-minute
late-night shopping, as we found in this leather store across the street from Restaurant 34
selling made in Italy items. We frequently upload new movies, so please subscribe to our channel
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