Taverna Trilussa

Taverna literally translates to tavern but when I think of a tavern my mind tends more towards a dark, maybe even slightly gothic, or at least very old-English, place that serves beer and not a whole lot else, and this does not help much with Italian meaning as far as I can tell. Italians have some many different names for restaurants, ristorante, osteria, trattoria, taverna, pizzeria etc etc, that it is often difficult to determine what defines a place as one or another. One way to look at them is purely by cost and in that respect I would say they go pizzeria, trattoria, ristorante, osteria/taverna moving from lowest to highest, but those are by no means hard and fast rules.

All that said, Taverna Trilussa does have one thing I would think of as a tavern, a large room with high ceilings, lots of exposed wood, and, since we're in Italy, legs of cured ham (various types of proscuitto) hanging from the beams.

I have heard many good things about Taverna Trilussa from a range of people but have never managed to make it over there until finally I went there tonight to have dinner with Melissa, her mother, roommates and good friend Fabiana. I came directly from work, which makes getting to Trastevere quite annoying as I have to take the bus instead of the Metro, which is generally a disaster as traffic is horrendous and the bus drivers seem to work when they feel like it, as with most of Rome. I finally arrived about a half hour late, fortunately the ladies were running late as well so they weren't waiting long.

For a starter we ordered to portions of mixed fried things (fritto misto) which consisted of mozzarella, zucchini flower (fiori di zucca), eggplant, and fried rice ball with cheese inside (suppli) and a few other veggies. For the six of us the portion for two was plenty. After that we all ordered pasta, Melissa's mother and her roommate Laura each had buccatini alla gricia (large spaghetti with a hole in the middle, literally, 'little hole,' with pancetta and a white sauce), Melissa had ravioli con fiori di zucca (ravioli in a zucchini flower cream sauce), and Fabiana and I split a cacio e pepe (spaghetti with pecorino and black pepper) and buccatini all'amatriciana (spicy tomato sauce with pancetta). I think Melissa's ravioli took the cake, and mine the shoe, the pecorino just didn't have much kick to it. Each dish came to the table in the pan it was cooked in to ensure all the sauce was preserved and we all passed the pans around after the pasta was gone to enjoy la scarpetta (literally 'the little shoe' but it means when you use a piece of bread to scrap up all the sauce on the plate, I love that the Italians have word for that).

Melissa also ordered some ricotta di bufala as a side for everyone to share, which was amazing and something that should not be missed, Melissa's mom described it as whipped cream without the sugar, it was that light.

For dessert Melissa asked the waiter to bring something she had last time that wasn't on the menu that was some kind of cream with a wafery pastry and nutella on top. It was fantastic but I think the tiramisu I go topped it.

All in all a great restaurant and somewhere that serves very traditional Roman dishes and the waiters love giving patrons who still have food on their plates a hard time, and I think some might actually not take a plate away until every drop of sauce has been scraped clean.

Dinner with appetizers to split, a pasta per person, a plate of cheese, two desserts, two bottles of a very nice Rosso di Montefalco and a round of after dinner drinks came to 40 euros a person.

Via del Politeama, 23; 06 5818918.