One of the best meals we had in Rome was at Cantina e Cucina, and it was so good, we ate here twice during our visit last week. The restaurant is a cosy and casual eatery, serving classic Italian food and wood fire pizza. They have a 4.5/5 score from 16500 reviews on TripAdvisor – so ya know it’s good! 😋
Entrée
This was a capricciosa pizza, made of tomato, mozzarella, cooked ham, egg, olives, artichoke and mushrooms for €10. I barely touched this because I was a picky eater at the time of this meal, but Mick loved it. He said it was a very savoury, thin pizza with a great cheese pull. The dough was airy and you could tell it had been kneaded well. The crust was a nice crispy and thin layer.
We ordered crispy Roman artichoke for €6 and when it came out, we were surprised by the dish. This was very unique and beautiful, presented in a floral shape. It had a smokey and sweet taste, with a crispy texture.
Main Course
Fuck me, this was a fucking good lasagne! 😍 For €9, you get a slice of freshly-made classic bolognese beef lasagne. It was so smooth and creamy. The parmesan added a mild nutty flavour to the bite. It was very well balanced and a good ratio of pastry, meat and cheese. It was so good I had another one on our second visit 🤤.
This was the beef meatballs with tomato and mashed potatoes. Literally. That’s what it says on the menu 😂 The meatballs were savoury and salty, cooked well all the way through. The mashed potatoes were rich and buttery, and the starch flavour was well blended into the cream. I could not stop eating it, to the point where I wanted to lick the plate clean hehe.
Dessert
We ordered the in house speciality tiramisu for €6.50. It was airy and creamy. We could taste the delicate layers of mascarpone and custard in-between the robust coffee flavour. It was a nice dessert to share.
Service
The restaurant was very busy when we dined there. We observed the staff constantly moving, on the ball. Both times we had to wait 15 minutes for a table, without a reservation, which was really great. All the staff were attentive and friendly and spoke fluent English.
Review
It was a lovely dining experience and if we lived in Rome, we would be here on the weekends.
Thanks for reading. Ciao 😋
Thanks for reading. Ciao 😋
