Breakfast: Faro
Occupying a corner position on the edge of the Sallustiano and Salario commercial districts, Faro is a busy café specialising in Italian-style and third-wave coffee. The internationally trained baristas use single-origin Arabica beans roasted by coffee hero – and multiple Italy Roasting Champion – Rubens Gardelli and serve butter-based cornetti and pastries in the morning, and salads, soups and sandwiches in the afternoon. Ample seating at tables in the light-filled space encourages guests to break from the tradition of throwing back espresso on the fly, and instead to sit and savour pour-over and AeroPress-brewed coffee.
Via Piave, 55, 00187 Rome
Fifteen Keys Hotel lobby.
Power lunch: Pipero
After five years near Stazione Termini, consummate host Alessandro Pipero and chef Luciano Monosilio have relocated their one-star restaurant to a larger space in central Rome. The “roots” menu lists Pipero’s beloved classics – goose tartare with apple and mustard and an acclaimed carbonara among them – while “branches” features newly developed dishes suited to a power lunch. Both menus are inspired by Italian ingredients, and transformed by modern techniques to deliver striking flavour and colour contrasts, such as lobster with beetroot and blood orange.
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 250, 00186 Rome
Dinner: SantoPalato
Sarah Cicolini earned her stripes in fine-dining kitchens but her forte is expertly executed trattoria fare that channels the soulful simplicity of Rome’s peasant classics – a refreshing change in a city where young chefs frequently try (and fail) to modernise the local cuisine. Diners visit Cicolini’s welcoming cream- and ochre-hued dining room in the residential Appio-Latino quarter for carbonara, Amatriciana and a wide range of quinto quarto (offal) dishes, among them trippa alla Romana, tripe cooked with tomato and seasoned with Pecorino Romano and mint. The wine list favours natural producers, while a half-dozen local craft beers mirror the evolving drinking habits of modern Romans.
Piazza Tarquinia, 4a/b, 00183 Rome
Drinks: BeRe
Less than 100 metres north of the Vatican walls in the Prati district, BeRe is among a raft of new pubs fuelled by the popularity of craft beer in the city. Its stellar selection of domestic and foreign bottles and draughts, which includes IGAs (Italian grape ales), obscure German lagers and Belgian sour ales, is overseen by Manuele Colonna, Rome’s premier publican, and is served from a gleaming copper bar. A branch of the Trapizzino street-food chain inside BeRe serves triangular slices of sourdough pizza sliced open and filled to order with savoury Italian classics such as chicken cacciatore – perfect for soaking up a few pints.
Via Vespasiano, 2, 00192 Rome
Laneway in Rome
Sleep: Fifteen Keys
As the name implies, this five-storey converted townhouse has 15 rooms, each of which blends soothing earth tones and bright hues in its Mid-Century-inspired furnishings. Most of the smallish rooms face a leafy internal courtyard insulated from the sometimes boisterous revelry outside in Monti district. If people-watching is more your scene, opt for the Master Grey Room on the top floor, where a balcony will let you oversee the action. Guests gather in an inviting 24-hour ground-floor bar, with distinctive navy walls and parquet flooring.
Via Urbana, 6/7, 00184 Rome
Courtyard at the Fifteen Keys Hotel
Coming soon: Pizzeria by Pier Daniele Seu
Pier Daniele Seu has developed a personal style as a pizzaiolo that marries the thick rimmed Neapolitan approach with the Roman crisp and chewy crust. His dough, a custom mix of flours, produces a fragrant, bubble-laden base that can support substantial toppings such as buffalo mozzarella, porchetta and mirto reduction. Details of Seu’s forthcoming pizzeria are sketchy – the Trionfale district near his mentor Gabriele Bonci is in the running – but in the meantime, see him at his stall in the Mercato Centrale.
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