Cesare al Pellegrino

We ended up at Cesare al Pellegrino somewhat by chance. Small place, nice, no frills.

Let's start with the baby squid à la diavola: absolutely killer. Truly exquisite, the kind that makes you say 'okay, these people know how to cook'. Then we asked for gricia and carbonara even though they weren't on the menu. No problem at all, they made them for us.

The gricia deserves its own discussion. Finding one so well-balanced with pecorino in Rome is getting harder and harder, I swear. They nailed it here. The carbonara was excellent too, except the guanciale was a bit too dry. Nothing dramatic, but you could tell.

Good tiramisu, right in line with the average of good Roman tiramisu. In short, it works.

Super courteous service, really kind. Essential but pleasant atmosphere.

The only thing that made me wrinkle my nose: 3€ per person for cover charge. For Rome it's a bit above average, oh well.

28€ per person all in. Considering the quality, I'd say we're good. We'll definitely come back to try what we didn't have this time.