“With every step down, you travel back in time 75 years.” So says the proprietor of Spirito di Vino, a family-operated, wine-centric restaurant in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood. He was talking about the steps down to the ancient wine cellar that sits below the dining room, but he could have been describing any subterranean staircase in Rome.
Francesco, the sommelier son, was a little less romantic, but no less enthusiastic and more than a little opinionated. About the problems that plague contemporary Italy: “There is nothing we can do. It is in our blood.” About his love of New York City: “I have been there, like, 16 times.” About where the best reds are coming from right now “Sicilia. SICILIA.” And about his parents: “My father thinks he knows everything but my mother, who is the chef, is a trained biologist who worked for a winner of the Nobel prize so, you know, who do you think is smarter?”
It can be disconcerting when half of the diners in a restaurant are foreign tourists. But when places are written up repeatedly*, I suppose that’s what happens.
No matter. The food was good, and the service was warm and bossy in a familial way. The maitre d’ Dad explained every item on the menu to us, though in sections; he wouldn’t let us order our secondi until we had finished our antipasti and primi piatti. As is often the case, the starters were the best part. I could have made a meal of the tiny veal meatballs, and I loved the cod crudo with shaved onions. The pastas were good, especially the spaghetti with tapenade. For dessert we had a rich chocolate cake, but the standout in my mind was honey-sweetened ricotta served in a lace cookie cup.
It was a 3 hour meal.
We drank plenty of wine. I had a glass of Friulian white to start and ordered a Barbera for the table. For our second bottle we put ourselves in Francesco’s hands and he chose, naturally, a delicious Sicilian red. At dessert he overheard my friend Jen say that she had never had grappa, and then next thing we knew the table was filled with glasses.
Maybe, on his 17th trip to New York, Francesco will look us up.
Spirito di Vino VIA Dei Genovesi 31 A/B , Rome, (+39) 06 5896689, Reservations recommended. website
* Apparently a famous television cook, famous for preparing meals in a hurry, visited Spirito di Vino a few years ago as part of a program about traveling and eating well on a (very tight) budget. I’m sure the show brought business to the restaurant, and that is a good thing. But although 55 euros a head is not outrageously expensive, particularly considering the quantity of wine we consumed, it is not a budget option by any stretch of the imagination. And to see this person’s cookbook on display at the restaurant next to a pile of pamphlets from SlowFood seemed… well…. it just seemed wrong somehow.
I think it was actually a 4-hour meal! Yum…