Rome is home to some of the finest restaurants in Italy. I suspect it’s also home to some of the worst. It can sometimes feel as though for every local-favorite trattoria and excitingly creative tasting menu, there’s a tourist trap swaddled in red-and-white-checked tablecloths and an overrated hot spot serving food that’s satisfying only on Instagram. That ratio likely won’t improve anytime soon. In 2015, Rome saw approximately 13.9 million traveler arrivals. By 2024, that number reached 22.2 million, and in the Jubilee year of 2025, numbers soared to 38 million. It’s become important to employ a little strategy.

There is an art to eating well in Rome, where dining is shaped by tradition, ritual and seasonality. If you follow a few simple guidelines, you just might find one of the best meals of your life here.

DON’T: Go it on your own

In the past decade or so, countless articles have been published on “how to live like a local,” with one of the main pieces of advice being to avoid hotels in favor of rentals. But hotel concierges can be founts of local knowledge and can secure hard-to-get reservations for the best restaurants in town. I use the Travel Office for advance planning, but I rely on concierges to fulfill last-minute whims. This insider access is one of the main reasons I choose hotels over AirBnBs.