Coso Ristorante, off Via del Corso, Rome’s main shopping street, is an ideal spot for family dining and typical Roman fare in the historical centre.
Right next to popular expat cinema Nuovo Olimpia, which shows plenty of original-language films, Coso Ristorante opened about eight years ago, offering typical Roman food with a modern twist. There’s lots of attention to good quality ingredients and robust portions, making this a good value option in one of the more touristy parts of town.
During the warmer months, 2020 regulations allowed Coso Restaurant to sprawl across the piazza, and the result is a pleasant ourdoor dining experience in a cobbled corner of Rome with little traffic. Indoors, the split level restaurant opens with a warm and welcoming atrium, and lots more space upstairs, where a cosy vibe carries the autumn and winter season.
Coso Ristorante is ideal for family dining in Rome, thanks to those generous portions and straightforward, tasty food. You’re also safe with the house wines – I drank the house red all night which was a fruity, well-balanced affair which handled a variety of courses well.
We started dinner with mixed antipasti, a veritable feast of hams, salami and cheese, which comes in at a good value €20 for two people. We also tried huge and fluffy jacket potatoes oozing with butter, guanciale and pecorino (€10), and seasonal winter artichokes (€8), cooked Roman style. This was all incredibly well done.
For the first course, we tried a couple of different pasta dishes to get a sense of the restaurant’s range. You’re probably best going for traditional Roman classics here, and they have them all, priced at €10. I tried a portion of well-executed carbonara, and a ‘drunken’ amatriciana, made with a special kind of cheese – pecorino ubriaco – which is cured in wine for a week to take on a lovely bordeaux colour and the aromatics of red wine. These were both adeptly executed.
Second course was a chance for another classic – slices of beef tagliata – in this case, Danish fillet – which is seared on the outside and left deliciously pink in the middle (€20). This was served with refried chicory greens (€6). The meat served at Coso Restaurant is sourced from Macelleria Feroci, a top quality Roman butcher, so you know you’re getting the best.
We finished with a trio of desserts; full sized portions cost €6 each. This was perhaps the most disappointing part of the meal for me. From top, the millefoglie, pear and rosmary crumble and tiramisu were all ok, but lacking that flair I would hope to find in the city of Rome. But I am a tiramisu purist, and don’t really enjoy the versions made with biscuits.
Overall, Coso Ristorante is a great spot to have up your sleeve when you’re doing a spot of shopping downtown, or have a hotel right in the heart of Rome and are looking for tasty, good value for money, Roman food.
Recommended!
Testaccina was a guest of Coso Restaurant.
Coso Ristorante | Via in Lucina 16L | Rome | Tel 06 6821 0420
