Il maritozzo Rosso

I stopped by Maritozzo Rosso in Trastevere, which is more of a street food spot with a few tables than an actual restaurant. The best part is watching the two girls prepare everything right in front of you—they're really charming, by the way.

I got a fried pizza with cacio e pepe that was good, fried properly, nothing special but for street food it does the job. Then the carbonara, which apparently they've won best carbonara in Rome for on Roma Today. Well, let's say it's good but with a few caveats.

The guanciale is crispy, sliced thick, decent quality. In my case it was already prepared, sitting in a bowl there, so not made fresh for me but still good. The cream is made with carbocrema, right amount of pepper, well-balanced, only it tends to be a bit dry. The tonnarelli is homemade, or rather, they probably get it from some fresh pasta workshop, they don't make it themselves but it's a solid tonnarelli.

The real problem? They serve it on a paper plate with a plastic fork. And that's where it gets tricky. The tonnarelli are heavy, the fork bends, the plate doesn't give you the surface to manage the pasta properly. For a carbonara that claims to be Rome's finest, it's kind of contradictory to eat it like this.

Otherwise they're nice, cute location in the piazza. Fair price for Trastevere, around 20 euros. But if you want to make Rome's best carbonara, at least give me a real fork.