Vatican City
No cuisine of its own — this is Rome's table, best eaten a few streets back from St Peter's.
Let's be honest: the world's smallest country has no kitchen of its own. What you eat in and around the Vatican is simply Roman, and gloriously so — as long as you walk away from the square. A few blocks into the old pilgrim quarter of Borgo, or better still residential Prati, the trattorias serve the Roman canon: cacio e pepe, spun from nothing but pecorino and black pepper; carbonara rich with guanciale and egg; molten-centred supplì rice croquettes eaten on the move.
Inside the walls there's really only the Museums' cafeteria, and the pope's own tax-free supermarket that tourists can't use. So treat the Vatican as a reason to eat Roman: grab pizza al taglio by weight, a whipped-cream maritozzo for breakfast, a gelato from a long-standing Prati counter. The one rule locals will give you — never, ever sit down at a restaurant facing St Peter's.
- Cacio e pepe (pecorino-and-pepper pasta)
- Carbonara
- Supplì (fried rice croquettes)
- Pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice)
- Saltimbocca alla romana (veal with prosciutto and sage)
- Maritozzo (cream-filled bun)
- Gelato
