Food Tours · Tour

Zucchini Flowers, and Gelato Where Caesar Was Killed

Street food in Rome is not a trend, it is what students and office workers have eaten at midday for as long as there have been offices here: something good, standing up, in the time it takes to order it. Two and a half hours following that habit around the centre. You meet under the statue of Giordano Bruno in Campo de' Fiori. In the mornings the square holds one of the oldest food markets in the city and the first tastings happen among the stalls; in the evenings the market is gone and the route adjusts. The Passetto del Biscione is next, a vaulted passage under a palazzo that most people walk past without seeing, with more eating around it. Then the Ghetto, established by Pope Paul IV in 1555 to confine Rome's Jewish population, and where four centuries of that confinement produced a cuisine of its own. You taste one of its specialities there: the fried zucchini flowers, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy and battered, are the version most visitors remember. At the Portico d'Ottavia there are first-century BC ruins standing in the middle of the neighbourhood, and at Largo Argentina you look down into four Republican temples and the remains of the Curia of Pompey, where Caesar was killed. That is where the gelato is. Along the way: Roman pizza, supplì, pastries, prosciutto, and a taste of wine and beer. The walk ends at Piazza Sant'Eustachio, which Romans associate with one thing, and it is coffee. Up to fifteen travellers, guided in English. Rain or shine. Tastings change with the season. Vegetarians can be accommodated with advance notice; vegans, gluten-free and dairy-free cannot, and there is a nut cross-contamination risk. Seats are not guaranteed, so it is not suitable if standing and walking are difficult.