Where Rome’s politicos lunch in style

This article is part of a guide to Rome from FT Globetrotter

Political plotting, palace coups and intrigue have plagued Rome’s political class for nearly three millennia. The modern day is no exception.

If recent history is anything to go by, Italian governments, on average, last around a year before inevitably collapsing. The country has seen 67 administrations since the end of the second world war.

While much of the Machiavellian scheming occurs behind closed doors in the capital’s salotti (the living rooms of Roman power brokers), some of the city’s restaurants have also long provided a setting for political deals, betrayals and gossip.

Several of these restaurants have been in business for longer than the Italian Republic has existed, with generations of politicians eating in wood-panelled rooms from menus that have little changed in decades.

More recently, a new generation of outsider MPs from the radical Five Star Movement, which began life as an online protest movement in 2005 and stormed into Italian national politics in 2013, have shaken up the city’s deeply entrenched dining scene in the same way they have its political establishment. (Virginia Raggi, an Italian lawyer and member of the Five Star Movement, was mayor of Rome from 2016 to 2021 after campaigning to fight corruption.)

Italian MPs are still known to enjoy lengthy lunches — sometimes three courses with wine — and many are loyal to their favoured spots for as long as they are in office, and beyond. While most of these restaurants are located close to Italy’s parliament and the prime minister’s office, they tend to be spared the full brunt of Rome’s swaths of tourists who gravitate to eateries close to the major monuments.

The following are a selection of Rome’s hardy dining perennials, along with some of the newer restaurants that have begun to gain popularity among the city’s political players in recent years.

Due Ladroni

PIAZZA NICOSIA 24, 00186 ROMe

• Good for: enjoying an al fresco plate of rigatoni all’amatriciana (a traditional tomato-based pasta sauce with guanciale and pecorino cheese) facing the Piazza Nicosia

• Not so good for: grabbing a quick light meal

• FYI: book a table in advance. Lunch is served from 12.30pm–3pm, while dinner is from 7.45pm–midnight. Closed on Saturdays for lunch and all of Sunday. (Website; Directions)

On the Piazza Nicosia, a short walk from the Piazza Navona, Due Ladroni has been operating for more than a century in various guises, and has built a well-earned reputation as a favourite for Rome’s political classes and high society. It serves traditional Italian fare with a focus on seasonal ingredients, such as tonnarelli with pancetta, pecorino and black truffle. The wine list is, unsurprisingly, mostly Italian, with bottles on offer from 15 regions.

The terrace is typically full to the brim every evening; those who would rather dine undisturbed often plump for a seat inside. The dining room, with dark wood-panelling and white tablecloths, offers a taste of the old world.

The restaurant has seen its fair share of scandal. Rino Barillari, the snapper dubbed Rome’s “king of paparazzi”, relied on the restaurant to stake out VIPs in the 1990s, while Vittorio Cecchi Gori, the businessman, ex-politician and producer of films such as Il Postino and Life Is Beautiful, is said to have begun his long relationship with the showgirl Valeria Marini over a meal there.

Due Ladroni has also served as the backdrop for dramatic moments in modern Italian political history. Francesco De Lorenzo, an Italian government minister, was arrested as he was leaving the restaurant during the Tangentopoli scandal of the early 1990s that resulted in the collapse of the postwar Italian political system.

Arancio D’Oro

Via di Monte d'Oro 17, 00186 rome

• Good for: seafood dishes such as baccalà and spaghetti with red prawns and cherry tomatoes or with clams

• Not so good for: a fine-dining experience

• FYI: open 12.30pm–3.30pm and 7pm–midnight; closed Mondays(Website; Directions)

In October 2018, when Italy’s newly elected populist government was potentially facing sanctions for breaking EU budget rules, the place that the three most important men in the coalition chose for a crisis summit was Arancio D’Oro, a traditional Italian restaurant near the Spanish Steps.

Here the then prime minister Giuseppe Conte was reported to have shared fillet steak and grilled squid with the two leaders of the parties that made up Italy’s coalition government, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant The League, and Luigi Di Maio, then leader of the Five Star Movement.

Arancio D’Oro is not the most private place for a high level political meeting. Its striped tablecloths and white wooden sideboards are far from the formal interiors of the more traditional politico haunt, as is its more casual menu, which includes woodfired pizza. But presumably the three politicians, then still in the honeymoon period of their coalition, clearly agreed the food was excellent as they dined there often. Their government, like so many before it, blew up less than a year later when Salvini suddenly decided, at a beach party, to quit the coalition in August 2019. 

Al Moro

Vicolo Bollette 13, 00187 rome

• Good for: classic local dishes such as trippa alla romana (Roman-style tripe) and carciofi alla romana (Roman-style artichokes)

• Not so good for: a tight budget. At €26 for tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, Al Moro is one of the pricier places for pasta

• FYI: open 12.30pm–3.30pm and 7.30pm–11.30pm; closed Sundays (Website; Directions)

Al Moro, another traditional wood-panelled restaurant, has managed to stay relatively off the radar of the hordes of tourists who congregate at the nearby Trevi Fountain — though it has remained a hotspot for politicians and Masters of the Universe. (It’s also a favourite of fashion designer Valentino Garavani, and Federico Fellini was a fan.)

The menu is focused on Italian classics made with fresh, seasonal ingredients purchased at local markets each morning. One of its most popular dishes is spaghetti al moro — the restaurant’s take on carbonara made with pecorino and chilli — though it’s particularly famed for its amatriciana and trippa alla romana.

This restaurant, which first opened in the 1920s, is known to be a haunt of MPs from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. When he was prime minister, the billionaire tended to dine privately in his luxurious Palazzo Grazioli residence, a five-minute walk away. 

Ristorante Nino

Via Borgognona 11, 00187 RomE

• Good for: Tuscan-style cooking in a traditional Roman setting

• Not so good for: dressing down

• FYI: open 12.30pm–3pm and 7.30pm–11pm; closed Sundays. Dress formally (Website; Directions)

Near the Spanish Steps is another cosy affair run by generations of the Guarnacci family, who first opened it in 1934. Veteran clientele claim that Nino has barely changed since it became a favourite of the Roman elite in the 1960s, and it remains popular with politicians and business people to this day. 

The restaurant is fairly formal: even at the height of Rome’s sweltering summer, men should not don shorts to eat here. (The waiters wear their white jackets even in August heat.)

Nino specialises in hearty traditional Tuscan cuisine, such as ribollita bean soup, and Florentine-style steaks, as well as staple pasta dishes. It’s favoured as a spot for a discreet but hearty lunch. Paolo Gentiloni, the Roman aristocrat, former Italian prime minister and current EU commissioner for economy, likes to eat here when he’s in town. 

Zuma

Palazzo Fendi, via della Fontanella di Borghese 48, 00186 rome

• Good for: escaping pasta

• Not so good for: atmosphere

• FYI: open noon–3pm and 8pm–midnight (11pm Sunday-Monday) (Website; Directions)

Located near Via del Corso, one of the city’s most famous shopping streets, the Italian outpost of chef Rainer Becker’s izakaya-style Zuma franchise is popular with media types and politicians wanting to escape the ubiquity of heavy pasta dishes and old-school dining rooms. Since opening in 2016, it has achieved the feat of tempting Forza Italia MPs away from their traditional Roman restaurants in favour of its Japanese offering.

The menu features an extensive list of sushi and sashimi with a luxe twist (think Wagyu gunkan with black truffle) alongside signature dishes such as roast lobster with green chilli and shiso butter, and spicy beef tenderloin with sesame, red chilli and sweet soy.

Zuma is situated on the top two floors of the Palazzo Fendi, home of the flagship store of the famous Italian fashion house, and a big selling point is the magnificent view from its roof terrace.

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