Checchino Dal 1887 – Rome

By N1

On previous trips to Rome, I had been a non-meat eater. But no longer. This being the offal-loving N2’s first trip to the Eternal City, and there being a dearth of Roman experiences that would be novel to us both, it seemed like an ideal time to sample Checchino Dal 1887, a well-known fine dining institution that is fittingly located in Testaccio, the old meat packing district.

Things got off to a bad start when we were given menus in English, despite my having booked in Italian and our greeting the staff in Italian on arrival. We would have asked for the Italian version but the waiter didn’t even look at our table again for 40 minutes. Maybe he walked off in disgust at our request for tap water, which was refused.

I can name at least four other well-reputed restaurants serving traditional offal-based Roman cuisine in Testaccio. If only I owned a smart phone, we would have been sitting down to dinner in one of them in less than the time that it took our waiter to return.

I have read that Checchino’s has a formidable cellar. If so, then they didn’t give us the full wine list. We asked for our wine to be double decanted but the request fell on deaf ears. The waiter did go through a ceremony of decanting a large splash of wine through every glass, which he then kept. The rationale, apart from keeping back a tasting portion of the wine, might have been to clean up any lingering smells from our glasses. Or maybe it was just for the tourists.

For the restaurant was full of tourists. Every table was speaking English except one, and they appeared to be Italian tourists from the north. (Maybe that explains the lack of Italian menus.) Even the waiters insisted on speaking English. This was especially irritating when it became clear that, with the exception of the manager, they only had a few stock phrases, and so were unable to answer our questions about the menu.

  

We started with the insalata di zampi (calf trotter salad), the testina de vitello (calf’s head), and the antipasto misto. The trotter was warm and gelatinous; the salad tasted mainly of the strong parsley sauce. The role of the trotter seemed to be more for texture than for taste. The calf’s head had been boiled, boned, mixed with lemon peel and spices (pepper, cloves) and cooked into a terrine that N2 said had the texture of superior, melting corned beef. It was very rich and tasty, if a bit of a wine killer because of the lemon. The antipasto was, well, mixed salami. It would have been nicer if the explanation of what the different cured meats were had arrived before we ate them - and we did save them until last.

For our primo we shared the rigatoni con pajata (lamb intestine in tomato sauce). The intestine had a lovely texture, but (like the trotter) not very much taste. For mains we had the restaurant’s trademark coda alla vaccinara, oxtail stewed with tomato, nuts, raisins and sprinkles of bitter chocolate. This was fine but not particularly special. Alongside, two contorni: cicoria in padella (chicory sauteed with garlic and chili) and melanzane alla piastra (baked eggplant). The chicory was very hot, which tickled N2’s tastebuds. The melanzane was a bit rubbery, like it hadn’t been salted properly.

As for desert, we decided it couldn’t possibly be worth the anticipated wait. Instead, we did as the italians, and stopped off for gelato on our way home.

Via di Monte Testaccio, 30 Testaccio

http://www.checchino-dal-1887.com/

Coda by N2

-    The oxtail was fine, but not a patch on the stellar slow braised oxtails as cooked by N1 (from Paula Wolfert’s Slow Mediterranean Kitchen).

-    After 4 days in Rome, the best Italian food I have ever had remains outside Italy; at Babbo in New York and Bocca di Lupo in London.