Antico Arco is situated in what tourists would consider an inconvenient part of Rome – high on the Janiculum hill, the second tallest in Rome (once the cult center of the god Janus).

A taxi would be the logical mode of transport, but we took a half-hour walk along the sloped Vatican walls, glowing gold from lamps, which led us straight to Antico Arco – or ancient arch. The restaurant is next to Arco di San Pancrazio, built in early, medieval Rome.
 

Domenico Calio greeted us, part of the triumviral ownership that includes Patrizia Mattei and her husband Maurizio Minore. Throughout the evening, Domenico presented a preternatural bright demeanor – the sort that has you convinced you’ve known (and liked him) him for years.
 

Framed view of the kitchen

The modern ambiance, a 2009 invention, features a pearlescent finish that coats brick walls and the ceiling. The reflective surfaces cast a gold and silver glow from light fixtures. A large, rectangular window at the restaurant’s far end showcased the kitchen staff, hard at work.

Framed views of the kitchen, de rigueur among today’s serious restaurant contenders, always, I feel, tinge a meal with a certain plotted decadence.

There the staff labors: slaving, assembling, barely dispatching the bustle out the banging doors while I sit, savoring pigeon breast in a crust of pistachio crumbs stuffed with ripe figs –– that I’ve been watching them toil over, through that window, in front of me.

It all seems, well, so damn Roman.

The meal, the bread, the chef

That pigeon breast - it was delicate, and finely paired with a plum sauce. It wasn’t the evening’s best-loved choice, however. Nor was it my dining companion’s, who ordered it. It was, however, well assembled, and an adventurous pick.

I chose the sautéed sea scallops with roasted red peppers. Well-executed scallops always wither my knees. I’ve long had a fantasy of devouring them like popcorn, at a movie.

Two large, plump specimens were arranged amid pools of orange sauce. To overwork an overworked phrase: they melted in my mouth. Like organic butter. I’m glad I was seated.
 

I forgot the bag of bread. It’s actually a paper sack of homemade bread and sticks that launches the meal. The standout: the onion bread, so luscious I had to ask the waiter to remove it to salvage my appetite.
 

The chef, Fundim Gjepali who hails from Albania, delivered an inter-course pasta dish thick with Mornay sauce and garnished with roasted zucchini flowers. The indeterminate cheese was sharp to the point of danger, but I loved it. My dining companion felt it too pungent. I enjoyed the daring piquancy.
 

We moved on to the beef tenderloin, almonds, smoked potato, and rosemary ––strewn with acid double cream piped into a ribbon.  Beautiful.  Also: veal tenderloin glazed with strawberry tree honey and eggplant caponata.  The veal was also very good, but I preferred the beef.  The cake of caramelized onion that it arrived with was excellent.

 

Beef tenderloin

Dessert

The presentation of the tenero alle mandorle was superb: almond soft biscuit, raspberry sorbet and green tea mousse all artfully placed as if Piet Mondrian had been hired to do it. The biscuit was densely rich and thick with flavor.
 

The pasticciotto salentino (warm pastry, custard and berries) seemed routine, the taste and texture too suburban for all that preceded it. We finished with coffee and liquors, and then a glance through that large rectangular window that framed the hard-working kitchen staff. I told Domenico they deserved a raise.

Antico Arco
Piazzale Aurelio 7, Rome
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+39 065815274




 
 

The east Roman neighborhood of Pigneto is scrawled with graffiti, street posters, and pasted with the occasional highbrow mural. A requisite line of youth smoke cigarettes too consciously along its pedestrian-only strip.

Roberto Rossellini filmed here (Citta Aperta, 1945), and the recent influx of young professionals, bars and cafes has lent the neighborhood an aura of urban cool. Tourists have not yet discovered Pigneto, which may change when Rome’s C Line, and its Pigneto stop, is completed around 2020.
 

 

The gritty street scene (some have compared Pigneto to Brooklyn’s Bushwick), washes away upon stepping into Primo. Launched in 2006, the restaurant turns it back on the exhaustive grunge outside its doors, favoring relaxed, comfortable dining.

Still, Primo feels fresh: low pool table lights illuminate a lengthy wood table, spotlights dangle, and exposed heating ducts hover above white walls trimmed in dark oak. A wall of wine with 250 varieties lies flush with the kitchen entry.
 

Chef Marco Gallotta’s menu is a twist on traditional Italian. An amuse-bouche of crusted anchovy with dill was good, if not a bit ordinary. But the octopus salad truly launched the evening. Strewn with thin strips of celery and peppered with orange and grapefruit, the salad was an optimal, crispy-chewy starter.
 

The spelt cous cous with vegetables, burrata cheese and salmon eggs was a knockout. It had taken a bit to find Primo (a 20-minute, mostly uphill walk from the San Giovanni Metro stop). After the cous cous, I knew I would have walked double that.

A potato purée laced with Parmesan that hid pooled egg yolks was bland – a bit of a curiosity, given its effort and feeble flavor. Condé Nast Traveller may have given Primo the top spot in its “10 Great Restaurants in Rome” list. That ranking, however, was not based on this recipe.
 

Pasta with peas, ham, Parmesan

Primo-made pasta stuffed with peas, ham and Parmesan was delectable – a contender with the cous cous. Next: fried squid curled over an artichoke salad and assorted greens.  It was well assembled, and considered. The savory taste was beautiful.

Dessert: a traditional cannolo Siciliano turned on end. Beyond the skewed presentation, it was rich and refreshing –– and equal to a vanilla parfait paired with caramelized strawberry and balsam sauce.
 

What I did not sample and wish I had: sliced breast of guinea fowl with roasted peppers and potatoes; pappardelle with mussels, bean and goat cheese; and sliced amberjack, roast potato crust and smoked eggplant purée.

There’s always the next trip to Rome, hopefully before that C Line is finished.

Primo

+39 06 7013827
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Via del Pigneto 46, Pigneto, Rome