One of the most well known Roman Restaurants, listed in travel books around the world, La Carbonara is well worth a visit. It's not that they make the best version of Spaghetti Carbonara, their namesake dish, but that everything they make is done well and in the classic style. From antipasti to dolce, you can depend on them to deliver a good meal. Waiters are efficient and unobtrusive and prices are fair. They serve outdoors during warm weather and indoors on two floors, but the main floor is small. I like sitting in any of the several rooms upstairs, obviously made from renovated apartments.
La Carbonara waiters serve the famous Roman bread Pizza Bianca before they even hand you the menu. It's foccacia made in Lazio not Liguria, so the name is different, but the texture is just as chewy and the taste just as delicious. For starters our group of 6 ordered prosciutto and melon. The colors in this photo look every bit as intense as the sweet flavor of the melon and the salty richness of the prosciutto, that happened to be drier than most we had on this trip to Italy. Therefore, the textures played nicely off one another too.
Smoked swordfish topped with arugula and a mild dressing of fruity olive oil turned out to be the very best of the three antipasti we shared on this particular evening. It was moist and fork tender with a smokey note that did not overpower the delicate fish flavor, but added beautifully to its richness and taste. I'd love to be able to order this again and hope it will be on the menu the next time we're in Rome.
Look at the deep orange color of the mussels in this photo. They were simply prepared in white wine, but what impressed me was that they looked wild, not farmed. Plump and juicy, they were delicious with the Pizza Bianca, that we had replenished several times that evening. The photo to the right is of Spaghetti Carbonara, simple, luxurious in its eggy dressing and made with guanciale, as is customary.
Carbonara is also made with penne at La Carbonara and it has a more pronounced al dente bite, since the pasta is thicker. Personally, as long as it's made correctly without cream and only egg, cheese, guanciale, and cracked pepper, I don't care what kind of pasta is used. Interestingly enough, there doesn't seem to be any pepper on either of these pasta renditions of Carbonara.
One of the diners in our party decided to go with a secondo and skip the pasta course. I'm sorry she didn't order something a little more interesting than a breaded veal cutlet. This has to be the most often served dinner item in restaurants all over Europe. Vitello Milanese, Wiener Schnitzel, whatever it may be called, it's rarely anything better than bland and inoffensive. My selection was a special for the evening, Gnocchi in a truffle cream sauce. October travel to Italy is perfect timing for porcini and tartufo.
The heady fragrance of the black truffles permeated the entire table, and coated the light as a feather gnocchi with just enough sauce to be flavorful without being overpowering. Wish I had analyzed it a bit more, but the gnocchi were irresistible and my efforts went into savoring them, rather than trying to figure out what ingredients went into the sauce. Parmigiano, in a restrained amount, was added by the waiter shortly after this photo was taken.
Piazza Campo de' Fiori 23
00186 Roma Lazio Italy
06 686 4783
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