What to eat in Rome
Roman food is narrow and stubborn: carbonara without cream, cacio e pepe, supplì, pizza by the slice, artichokes in season and offal from the old slaughterhouse quarter.

[ ] Eat carbonara
    Pasta with guanciale, egg yolk, pecorino and black pepper, and nothing else. No cream: the creaminess comes from yolk beaten with cheese and starchy water off the heat.
[ ] Try cacio e pepe
    Three components only: pecorino romano, black pepper and pasta water whipped into an emulsion. The simplest and hardest dish in the city, and the test of a cook.
[ ] Order amatriciana
    Guanciale, tomato, pecorino and a pinch of chilli on bucatini, the thick hollow spaghetti. The only one of the four Roman pastas with tomato in it.
[ ] Try gricia
    Amatriciana without the tomato, or carbonara without the egg: guanciale, pecorino and pepper. It is regarded as the ancestor of all four and appears on menus least often.
[ ] Eat a supplì
    A fried rice ball with meat ragù and a piece of mozzarella inside that pulls into a thread when you break it. The name comes from the French for surprise, mangled by Roman pronunciation.
[ ] Buy pizza al taglio
    Pizza baked in trays, cut with scissors and sold by weight rather than by the slice. Long-fermented dough, tall and crisp: a Roman genre of its own, not Neapolitan pizza.
[ ] Try Roman-style pizza
    A round pizza on thin, crisp and almost dry dough — the opposite of the soft Neapolitan style. Baked in a wood oven and eaten with a knife and fork.
[ ] Try artichokes in season
    Two ways: alla romana, braised whole with mint and garlic, and alla giudia, deep-fried whole until it opens like a crisp flower. The season runs December to April.
[ ] Order saltimbocca alla romana
    A thin veal escalope with a slice of prosciutto and a sage leaf, pinned with a toothpick and fried in white wine and butter. The name means it jumps into your mouth; it cooks in five minutes.
[ ] Try trippa alla romana
    Beef tripe braised in tomato with mint and covered in pecorino. A Testaccio classic from the quinto quarto, the offal that slaughterhouse workers were paid in.
[ ] Eat a maritozzo
    A soft sweet bun split and packed to bursting with whipped cream. The Roman weekend breakfast, eaten with a cappuccino and attacked from both ends at once.
[ ] Get gelato artigianale
    Ice cream made on the premises: pastel rather than neon colours, in covered tubs rather than piled into towers under the glass. A mountain of whipped gelato means stabilisers and an industrial base.
[ ] Try crostata di ricotta
    A shortcrust tart filled with sheep's ricotta and sour cherry jam, a dessert from the Roman ghetto. Dense, not sweet by most standards, and built for coffee.
[ ] Have a caffè al banco
    An espresso drunk standing at the bar in under a minute, which is how Romans take it three times a day. At a table the same coffee costs two or three times more, and that is an official service tariff.
[ ] Try grattachecca
    Hand-shaved ice with fruit syrup and pieces of fresh fruit, sold from kiosks along the Tiber from May to September. The Roman version of shaved ice, older than any gelato in the city.
[ ] Drink wine from the Castelli Romani
    White wine from the hills just south of Rome: light, cheap and made to be drunk young with local food. Osterias pour it by the carafe rather than the bottle.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-rome