Santo PalatoRome

We went to Santo Palato basically because carbonara shows up in every Rome ranking. Pricey, yeah, but worth trying. Except then everything else surprised us too.

Let's start with the oxtail meatball alla vaccinara with cocoa. It kills. Everyone talks about it in the reviews and they're right, because it really is something special. Flavors you don't expect but that work brilliantly. We also got a tomato and cheese bruschetta from the daily menu—boring name but total surprise: stewed cherry tomatoes with aromatic notes and primo sale cheese, way more interesting than it sounds.

Then the carbonara. Half-portion, the way it should always be, super creamy with generous guanciale. But here's the thing—we would've liked the guanciale crispier. It's excellent though, if it's THE best in Rome, well, that's debatable. The amatriciana though, meh, good but unremarkable. The only dish I could find the same way at a hundred other places.

The maritozzo served warm with lots of cream made my wife happy—she's obsessed. Except it had a kind of grayish color that was a bit sad to look at, even if the taste was all there.

In the end, 29 euros per person. For a trattoria that's not nothing, but for how well we ate, it's fair. You can tell there's thought and desire behind every dish to do something different, without going overboard. Real Roman spirit.

We'll definitely go back, maybe trying some other specials from the board.