Mother Martha investigates restaurants, recipes and foodie culture in Rome and beyond
L'Orto Di Maramao, a "rural" oasis in central Rome During the Middle Ages, Campo de’ Fiori (“Field of Flowers”), today Rome’s oldest open-air fruit-and-vegetable market, was the commercial and touristic center of the city as well as the site of public executions. The most notorious was that of the Dominican poet, philosopher, mathematician and [...]
We all know that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Indeed, Rome is a layer-cake of history built on seven hills, and it is appropriately nicknamed “The Eternal City” because visitors can see monuments and art from almost every period of her c. 2,700-year history: Ancient Greek, Republican Rome, Imperial Rome, Medieval (if not so much), [...]
When I first arrived in Rome in 1972 as a young bride, there were no ethnic restaurants except French “Charlie’s Saucerie” between the Colosseum and St. John Lateran, Japanese “Hamasei” near Piazza di Spagna, and the “Cantina Tirolese” near St. Peter’s, a favorite with Cardinal Ratzinger before he was elected Pope. All three are still in [...]
Salmon Roll At the time of this writing, a month after its opening, “Me Geisha,” founded by Italian-American businessman Giuseppe Tuosto two years after his successful restaurant with the same name at Via Roma 59 in Salerno, is probably still Rome’s newest restaurant. Just off Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, next door to the Chiesa [...]
Panettone translates as “a large loaf of bread.” Actually, it’s a large sweet bready cake with various creamy fillings, raisins and candied fruits; its dome is covered with toppings of different flavors. Panettone’s origins probably date back to the Roman Empire: ancient Romans sweetened a type of leavened cake with honey. During the Renaissance, it became [...]
Roman to the core, Aldo Fabrizi (1905-1990) was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter, and comedian, best known for his role as the heroic priest in Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City and as a partner of the Neapolitan actor Totò in a number of successful comedies. Aldo’s exuberant younger sister, Elena, known as “Lella,” also had a [...]
The exterior of Fragrance Hotel St Peter. For many years, Friar Tuck and I were neighbors on Via Monte del Gallo, a narrow, quiet, residential street, which winds uphill from the Italian State Railway’s St. Peter’s station at the beginning of Via Gregorio VII to the Vatican-owned, spartan, rabbit-warren hotel Casa Tra Noi (www.hotelcasatranoiroma.com). [...]
Naples, Italy. Although pizza was almost certainly born more than 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, it’s the single food most firmly associated with Italy, and particularly with Naples. The first documented pizzas were eaten in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, where archaeologists have uncovered brick pizza ovens. But it was pizza without mozzarella and [...]
Heinz Beck. In 1993 Hans Fritz, the German director of Rome’s Cavalieri Hilton, asked Heinz Winkler, the chef, restaurateur/owner of “Tantris,” the only Munich restaurant with three Michelin stars (and still today the owner of the three-starred “Residenz Heinz Winkler” in Aschau), to recommend a talented protégé to become Executive Chef for a still-to-open Hilton [...]
Hotel Michelangelo Built in 1959 for the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, 4-star Hotel Michelangelo (Via della Stazione di San Pietro 14), like “La Vittoria” and “Il Cantico” (reviewed in the previous two issues of Inside the Vatican) is on the Trastevere side of St. Peter’s Square, directly across the wide street, Via [...]
