Matricianella

Located in the heart of the city in the back streets between the Spanish Steps and Via Fontanella, Ristorante Matricianella has been a Roman institution since it first opened under the name in 1957. Its cuisine, like the décor, is militantly traditional—as the restaurant says, the “menu doesn’t leave any space” for fashion, for the “in” or the “exotic,” choosing instead only those ingredients that are “strictly linked to the origins of Roman food.”

This fierce defense of the traditional and local over the novel and international is extended to the restaurant’s wine list—or rather lists, since Matricianella offers two fine and well-priced lists. The first “main” list roams freely across the length of Italy, featuring a vast range of top producers, including several verticals of top producers such as Gaja, La Spinetta, Tenuta San Guido, and Duca di Salaparuta. The second list, however, brings it all back “home,” and a 24-page celebration of the wines of Lazio, from Sergio Mottura’s “Spumante” and Grechetto La Tour Civitella, to Falesco’s Est! Est! Est! Montefiascone and Merlot Montiano.