The Best Trastevere Restaurants – Where to eat and drink in Trastevere (2024)
Fresh from spending the past 4 days in Rome and exploring every famous site in the city, we happily ate our way through the incredible Roman district of Trastevere. Trastevere is a buzzing part of Rome that is vibrant with restaurants, pubs, and cocktail bars.
It’s the perfect place to go for dinner, grab a few cocktails and see where the night eventually takes you. We ate our way around the Best Trastevere Restaurants and sampled the good, the amazing, and the unmissable.
With its winding alleyways that are lined with either cocktail bars, or hole-in-the-wall takeaway spots selling Roman street food, it’s hard to deny the lure of this area for students, tourists, and locals alike.
With so many excellent restaurants in Trastevere, it could take you a few weeks to work your way through them all. So here’s a list of the 11 Best Trastevere Restaurants and Cocktail Bars you’ve got to experience when in Rome.
Restaurants in Trastevere
1. Tonnarello
Let’s start at the most popular restaurant in Trastevere, Tonnarello. No matter what time of the day you pass by Tonnarello you will find lines of people waiting for a seat in this restaurant. It also has one of the highest Google Review scores I’ve ever seen with 62,000 reviews rating it an average 4.7/5 score. With reviews like that, we had to try it out for ourselves.
Tonnarello serves all your favourite Italian dishes, from Pizzas, Pasta, and Meatballs. Its popularity stems from the quality of its ingredients and rapidly serving dishes that ensure the restaurant is able to turn over tables to cater to the demand of customers who wait almost an hour for a table.
The food in Tonnarello is good and I think part of the fun is queuing for a table and experiencing excellent service that is fast-paced and hectic. It’s perhaps not as authentic as other trattorias found in the area, but it’s worth at least one meal. If you are looking for one of the most popular restaurants, this is where to eat in Trastevere.
Website: https://tonnarello.it/
Address: Via della Paglia, 1/2/3, 00153 Roma RM, Italy
2. Eggs
Roman Classics with a twist! For egg lovers, this is an absolute must when visiting Trastevere. Not only are the wait staff incredibly friendly and make a mean Aperol Spritz, but they are also happy to walk you through the menu and make suggestions. We loved this fun and very different Trastevere restaurant.
Every single table around us ordered the Carbonara and it was some of the best carbonaras we had in our 4 days in Rome. The smoked pancetta was extraordinarily flavoursome and it was presented in a really atypical way that I’m sure actual Italians are deeply offended by.
Everything we tried was delicious and it was a nice different restaurant if you get a bit tired of traditional Italian food.
Website: https://eggsroma.com/
Address: Via Natale del Grande, 52, 00153 Roma RM, Italy
3. Trapizzino
I actually discovered Trapizzino from one of my favourite travel YouTube accounts, TopJaw, who highly recommended Trapizzino. It’s essentially a mix between a pizza slice and a sandwich, with a flavoursome filling. This triangle deliciousness is a flavour explosion with Trapizzino toppings including Chicken Cacciatore, Meatball & Sauce & Eggplant Parmigiana.
There is always a line of people either grabbing some to go or you can grab a seat inside. We enjoyed ours on the square just beside Piazza Trilussa, soaking up the sunshine with a beer. They were so delicious I didn’t even get a chance to take a photo of their yumminess. The restaurant and idea have become so popular that they’ve opened up branches in New York & Milan.
They also have the best street food snacks, Suppli, available for take out. Suppli is one of my favourite Roman street food snacks and an absolute must when visiting Rome. Suppli is a deep-fried risotto rice ball that is stuffed with various ingredients. The name actually originates from the French word for ‘Surprise’, after French visitors were delighted to find that the rice ball had delicious melted cheese in the centre of its gooey goodness.
Some of the Suppli flavours in Trapizzino include Cacio e Pepe {Cheese & Pepper}, All’amatriciana, Sausage and Broccoli. We settled for the traditional Classic Suppli and they were our favourites of all the suppli’s we tried across the city!
Trapizzino is a great place to grab a quick bite to eat as you explore the surrounding streets of Trastevere. It was my favourite Trastevere restaurant for a quick and incredibly delicious snack between meals.
Website: Trapizzino
Address: Piazza Trilussa, 46, 00153 Roma RM, Italy
4. Antica Osteria Ponte Sisto
We enjoyed a delightful lunch in Antica Osteria Ponte Sisto with helpful suggestions from the waiter. Torn between the Carbonara and Amatriciana Pasta, he confided that the Carbonara was his favourite and that he has it for his lunch 4 times a week. Whether or not it was true, it was absolutely delicious. We enjoyed a 3-course lunch Roman style with Antipasti, Primi & a shared Secondi.
The restaurant is located just beside the Ponte Sisto bridge that connects Trastevere with the ‘more popular’ side of Rome. The setting is lovely and we enjoyed our meal outdoors in the surprisingly beautiful February weather. A charming trattoria and Trastevere restaurant that should be visited at least once.
Address: Via Di Ponte Sisto, 80, 00153 Roma RM, Italy
5. Otello
It’s not hard to find lots of traditional trattorias’s in Trastevere, but it can be difficult weeding out the average ones. Otello is a really good place to come and experience a traditional trattoria restaurant in Trastevere.
From the wine served in carafes to mouth-wateringly delicious pizzas that could be ordered half & half. It was one of the only restaurants where I saw gnocchi on the menu and of course, had to order it. It was delicious and served with 4 kinds of cheese and tomato sauce, it was really something special.
Dining in Otello was also one of the cheapest meals of our trip, with pizzas starting from €8.50 and carafes of wine from €14. Tasty food that is affordable and delicious.
Address: Via della Pelliccia, 47/53, 00153 Roma RM, Italy
Website: https://trastevere-trattoria-otello.it/
6. Prosciutteria Cantina dei Papi
If you want to skip a night of eating pasta and pizza or just fancy a little meat & cheese board then you’ve got to go to Prosciutteria Cantina dei Papi. This delightful restaurant in Trastevere is charming and rustic, with absolutely incredible cheese and meat boards that have the finest and freshest ingredients.
The presentation of the boards are beautiful, and the wine selection is fantastic. There’s very limited seating outside, but it’s super cute if you can manage to get a table. We tried several evenings to get a seat and it was only on our last night that we managed to get a table. One of our highlights of the trip.
7. L’Elementare
A friend who lives in Rome suggested L’Elementare as her go-to pizza place when visiting Trastevere. Unfortunately, we ran out of days to eat and didn’t get a chance to experience it, but it was busy every night we passed by it.
The pizzas look incredible and the fig and burrata pizza came highly recommended. The pizza toppings are not the typical Roman-style pizza toppings you will find in other restaurants around the city and this makes them even more appealing. A great cheap pizza restaurant in Trastevere for those seeking something a bit different and with excellent prices.
Best Cocktail Bars in Trastevere
There are so many great places to grab a drink in Trastevere. From dive bars, fancy cocktail bars and cosy pubs, there is an establishment for everyone. Trastevere has a strong student population which adds flavour to this fantastic neighbourhood. The place is especially vibrant during the evenings and during the weekends is one of the most popular places to be in Rome.
8. Oste Nostro
A really cute cocktail bar, Oste Nostro, makes feels like you are in your grandmother’s living room. The cocktails here are superb and it’s a very chill place with excellent vibes. We asked for cocktails not listed on the menu and the bartender was more than happy to make them.
Oste Nostro also serves some delicious food and their cheese boards looked really yummy too. Unfortunately, it was too cold to sit outside, but it’s quite similar to its interiors with eclectic furniture and would make a great spot to enjoy some quality cocktails in the sun.
9. Sottosopra
A cocktail bar that also serves food caught my eye as we made our way past Piazza Trilussa with its decorative lighting visible from the street. It’s a nice place to grab a cocktail before heading into the main part of Trastevere. Our cocktails were nice but most people seemed to be eating, so we hurriedly finished our drink and moved on.
10. Essenza Wine Bar Trastevere
Essenza Wine Bar is a great place for a nightcap after your dinner in Trastevere. With a large selection of wines to choose from, Italian and beyond, you’ll be tempted to work your way through the menu. There are cheese and meat boards available that looked delicious and the atmosphere was really fun and vibrant. It also helped that our accommodation was a 1-minute walk away.
11. Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fà
Beer lovers need look no further than Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fa, a pub that specializes in craft beers, especially Italian craft beers. There are 16 beers on tap which rotate, so you’ll be spoilt for choice when deciding which local or international beer you want.
Living in Belgium and having so many Belgian Beer Cafes available on my doorstep, we gave this one a skip, but it looked brilliant and worth checking out for those with a thirst for excellent beer.
Food Tours in Trastevere
A food tour is a great way to discover new areas and local dishes. We try and do a food tour in every city we go to, just so we can sample some of the local cuisines. We did a food tour in Rome and it was absolutely brilliant.
Our guide Elizabeth impressed us with her knowledge of Italian cuisine and the history of the area. Our group was really fun and we bonded over pizza, suppli and gelato. We booked our tour through Get Your Guide and I can’t recommend it enough.
Finding the best Restaurants in Trastevere
You can easily spend a couple of weeks eating your way around Trastevere, and this list is just the tip of suggestions that I found really delicious and worth mentioning. It’s hard to have a bad meal in Italy, the food is so simply delicious.
Let me know if you managed to make it to any of the restaurants or cocktail bars and what you thought about the restaurants. Have I missed any Trastevere Restaurants that you feel should be included on this list? Leave a comment below.
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Meet Missy…
Missy spent the first 2 decades of her life living in her native Dublin, Ireland. Before a life living overseas called to her, and she spent the next decade living in China, Laos & Belgium. She now splits her time in Antwerp, Belgium, and wherever the sun is currently shining. You can follow Missy’s real-time travels on her Instagram.
